Just My Luck
by Galad Estel
Summary: First they take over my home and now they are following me to college. My whole world seems against me, and now the characters from my favorite story have come to plague me, those dread sons of Feanor. Part of the Plushie Series
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

If it were not for the box, I would have said that the conversation in library had been an invention of my ever-roving imagination. But there it sat conspicuously on my desk, waiting.

I remember the moment when it was shoved in my arms, the minutes before when its porter had born it in. I had just arrived at the library, unlocked the doors, and turned the lights and computers on. As if moved by some subconscious foreboding, I had paced the library floor. No patrons had yet arrived. Only my sister, Chantal, was with me, and she had gone to the children's room to use her laptop. Everything was still, yet I still felt anxious. I sighed, scolding myself for worrying. Nothing ever happened. Nothing ever would.

I opened up my laptop and tried to find my place in _Memoirs of a Geisha_, my "library book" – the book I read when I was working in the library. There was not much I had to do as librarian. I got there at two and stayed there till six. I read or wrote or watched people do things on the computers. Sometimes I would help someone with the photocopier. Then at the end of the day, I would mark down the patrons and computer users and such things as that. It was a rare case when I actually had to check out a book, unless it was a book for my sister or myself.

Anyway, I had just found my place in my "library book", when there was a dull knocking on the front door. Silently cursing myself for not making sure the door had not automatically locked – which was its habit – I raced to open it. An old man walked in dressed in odd attire (not that I should be one to comment on clothing, seeing that my own clothes tend to look utterly old fashioned, but that is not my fault…I shall speak of this later). A grey cloak and hood were wrapped around his body and head. In his hand he carried a rather beaten up cardboard box.

"Is this the library?" he demanded.

I nodded.

"Yes, it is," I said.

"And you are the librarian?"

"Yes, I am."

"They entrust all these books to you?" he asked.

I looked around the small room with its few shelves of books and its wall of paperbacks and nodded.

He gave me a long look. "Aren't you a little young?"

I could not help but blush, which made me annoyed. "I am eighteen."

He looked over his shoulder anxiously.

"I need to entrust something to you," he said. He placed the box on the desk.

"Oh," I said. I wondered if he were donating books to the library.

"Yes," he said, "But I need you to promise me something."

"What?"

"You will bring this box home with you, and only open it when the New Year is brought in," he said.

"Why?" I asked, not seeing any sense in his words.

He laid a hand on my shoulder. Instinctively, I recoiled. He sighed ever so softly and turned away. He looked over his shoulder. His eyes were sad and pleading in his worn face.

"Please," he said. He kept looking at the door and windows, "I know this sounds strange, but I cannot explain. I have spent too much time here already."

He took the box from the desk and placed it in my arms then he turned towards the door. He slipped out without another word. Placing the box down, I went to the door trying to see where the old man was going, but there was no sign on him. He had vanished.

I brought the box home. That had been yesterday, Friday. Today was Saturday, New Year's Eve, and it was drawing near midnight, and my curiosity and paranoia were climbing higher with every passing minute. Chantal and I exchanged anxious glances as the seconds ticked by. We were lying on my twin-sized bed in the small bedroom we shared staring at the box.

"What do you think is inside of it?" Chantal asked.

I shook my head. "I don't know," I said, "but it's not books. It's too light."

She nodded, and then she widened her eyes in feigned terror.

"What if it's a bomb?" she asked.

"I don't know," I answered. The idea had passed through my head several times since I had acquired the box. Along with thoughts of drugs, body parts, weapons of any sort, strange objects, rings of power, and a thousand other things as well.

"This is rather unnerving," she said.

"I know," I said glumly. I glanced up at the Map of Beleriand that hung over my bed, tracing my fingers across from the sea to Doriath and up to Hithlum.

Chantal shifted uncomfortably on the bed beside me. Sometimes I found it a strange that though she had her own bed she spent so much time on mine. Sometimes I even found it annoying, but right then, I actually found her presence quite comforting. At sixteen, Chantal was two years younger me. As a far as back as I can remember she followed me everywhere. She even decided to follow me to college.

"This is creepy," I said half joking.

"I know," Chantal said.

"Well," I said, "at least, we will not have to wait much longer."

She nodded. The clock struck midnight.

"Happy New Year," I mumbled and walked over to the box. I cut the tape with scissors and opened the flaps, Chantal peering over my shoulder the whole time.

"Toys?" I said looking with disappointment at the plush figures in the box. They were quite large, almost life sized and their bodies were regaining their shapes after been crushed into the box.

"Ah," Chantal said lifting one of them up, "They're so cute."

I forced a smile.

"Yeah, they are."

There were three men, a women and a dog.

"I think they're suppose to be Elves," Chantal said dancing one in front of my face, "See they have pointed ears."

I nodded and smiled.

"You know what I think," I said.

"What?" she asked.

"I think that this is Luthien, see she has got a blue mantle with gold lilies?"

Chantal nodded.

"I wonder who he was…" I said.

"The man from the library?"

I nodded. "And how he knew we liked the _Silmarillion_," I added softly.

"I think that this is probably Celegorm," Chantal said, holding up the gold haired one, who was nearest the dog.

"Then these last two must be Curufin…and…Caranthir?"

"Could be."

"I didn't even know they made _Silmarillion_ plush toys," I said.

"I know. I didn't think it was that popular."

We stared at the toys for a while.

"Well, we should probably go to bed," I said.

"Bed?" Chantal said.

"It's late," I said with a shrug of my shoulders.

She sighed and looked as if I were extremely boring. I did not care. I had to rest so I could puzzle over all this with a sharper mind.

"Maybe we will be able to dream up an answer to this?"

"Fine," she said and picked up Curufin and put him on her bed beside her.

We placed Celegorm, Luthien, and Huan in between our beds, since they were too large to all fit on our beds. I placed Caranthir on my bed, and turned my back on him.

"Good night," I said.

"Good night," Chantal replied.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

I awoke to the sound of another's breath close to my ear. Still half a sleep I reached for its owner, thinking that it was probably my dog, Laurel, who often climbed onto my bed at night when I was or she thought I was asleep, but the ear I touched was not Laurel's velvety flap but a strangely pointed but otherwise quite human ear. Swiftly I turned over and looked into a pair of steel grey eyes.

"Sorry," I mumbled in surprise before remembering that this man should not have been there in the first place. What would my parents say? My father would probably use this as a perfect example of how my sister and I were the sneaking, rebellious daughters he claimed to my mother we were, but that should have been the least of my worries. This man was armed, having both sword and bow, and in his eyes there was a glimmer of anger. It was rather unnerving.

"Where am I?" he demanded pointing with a wildly waving hand at the map of Beleriand. Caranthir, this man was Caranthir, wasn't he? He was a tall man with a lithe body dressed in leather pants and a red leather jacket. His skin glowed a fine reddish brown color, and his dark hair was pulled tightly back behind his ears.

"You are in Maine," I said, drawing in long breaths. I did not know which breath would be the last.

The man did look very happy with that explanation.

"And where," he said again pointing at the map, "is that?"

I looked over and saw that there was another man on Chantal's bed; this one was thin and wiry with a sly smile. His hair was also dark, but his skin was pale. He had one hand over Chantal's mouth, and in the other he held a dagger, which was laid across her throat. I looked at the floor and saw a tall blond man trying to keep a fierce but petite brunette from getting away from him. There was a huge dog looking on with worried eyes, and Laurel was standing near him whining in protest.

There were two logical explanations I could think of at the time and one irrational one. The first logical explanation was that I had finally gone insane as I knew I would if I spent another year here, but since I was still able to come up with logical explanations this did not seem likely. Another possibility was that I was dreaming, but to have such a stereotypical dream, did not seem very like me…of, course, I was getting over a cold, so I had some excuse, but really I was a bit disappointed with my subconscious mind. However, I was rarely afraid of dying in my dreams. Usually, when I did die I realized that I was not me at all, but someone else and just went on with my dream, but this did not seem such a case. I decided to go with my last explanation then. These were the plush toys that had come from the box I got from the man in the library. It made the most sense.

"Well?" Caranthir snapped.

"It's not on the map," I said warily, "Well, not on this one anyway."

"Well, you were the one who brought us here," he accused, "so you must know how to take us back to where we came from."

"I do not," I said indignantly, not wanting to be slain over something I could not help.

Caranthir looked at me skeptically.

"Explain," he said sternly.

Slowly, I sat up drawing my blankets around me. Caranthir's hand slid to the hilt of his sword, and he gave me a "don't you try anything look". I nodded, crossing my bare arms across my chest to hide the eyelets of my sleeveless, pink, floral nightgown and shivering slightly.

"I was working at the library," I said, "and this man came by and dumped this box in my arms and ran away. I was instructed not to open the box till midnight the following day, which I did. In it I found five plush toys of a rather large size, and when I woke you were here!"

I indicated to the room at large.

"Likely story," Curufin said with a cruel smile, but Caranthir's eyes glowed with fiery indignation.

"_I was never a plush toy_," he said slowly and menacingly.

"But you were…" I protested, too confused to remember that this was one of the most unintelligent things to say at the moment.

I felt Caranthir's fingers slide around my neck.

"I was never a plush toy," he said again in an even more threatening voice, "_do you understand_?"

I was wondering how I was going to explain my story to them without the plush toy element. There was no other explanation I could think of. Caranthir's fingers squeezed tighter on my throat. "_Understand?"_

I nodded. I had little desire to be strangled to death._Besides_, I thought defiantly, _Just because I understand, it does not mean I agree._

Caranthir let go of me, and I fell back against the wall breathing deeply and wondering how he had any idea what a plush toy was.

Laurel was now giving out shrill little barks of protests. She hated fights and wondered why everyone could not just get along. I was wondering what I was supposed to tell Caranthir now. Curufin had still not let go of my sister. I was really starting to worry. My parents had no idea about the Elves. What if they came in and startled them? That did not seem like a good idea. I had told my mother that the box was filled with old magazines that I was suppose to go through to see if I liked any. It was really alarming how good I had become at lying, and now it seemed that it might just bring about both my end and the end of my sister.

_The truth will set you free_, an annoyingly pure little voice scolded me in my head.

_Oh, yeah,_ another gruffer voice said, _it didn't make Caranthir very happy._

I pushed both voices aside and tried again to think through the situation rationally. _What other reason would they be doing here?_ I wondered.

_You're thinking up another lie?_The first little voice piped up.

I sighed.

"Ow!" the blond man, Celegorm, suddenly shouted. He pulled away from the little dark girl, Lúthien, and sucked on his hand, which she had evidently bitten. She tore away from Celegorm (leaving her mantle behind in his grasping hand) and ran down the stairs screaming, "Help! Help!" in a clear, high voice. Celegorm leaped up and followed after her. Caranthir and Curufin exchanged worried looks. Then Curufin stuck his knife back on his belt and grabbed Chantal's arm.

"Come on," he growled, "we are going down, and don't make any trouble, or you'll be sorry."

Chantal pulled her blue nightshirt up over her shoulder and stalked silently after him. Caranthir grabbed my arm and dragged me along down the stairs.

Huan and Laurel exchanged bewildered glances and trailed after us.

We entered the kitchen to find my parents staring with surprise at Lúthien and Celegorm.

"Please," Lúthien was saying, desperately, her grey eyes wild and filling with tears, "You have to help me. This man is trying to force me to marry him."

My mother, not surprisingly, looked pretty shocked. She eyed Celegorm with suspicion and pulled Lúthien near her.

"What is all this about?" my father asked gruffly, "What are you doing in my house?"

"Ask you daughter," Caranthir said, shoving me forward.

"Elina?" my father asked turning to me.

"I don't know where they came from," I said my voice shaking. I remembered that Caranthir had said that they had never been plush toys, so I could not have possibly brought them here, "I just woke up, and they were there."

"She brought us here," said Caranthir, "And she knows how to get us back to where we came from, and until she shows us how, we aren't leaving."

"I don't know how," I protested.

"Liar," snarled Curufin.

"They must be on drugs or something," my father whispered to my mother. She nodded and began quietly moving towards the kitchen phone, which was a few feet behind her, while my father started to ask where they were from and where they wanted to go, things like that, but it would be very hard to outfox Curufin.

"What are you doing?" he asked as my mother picked up the receiver. He moved forward and took the phone from her and studied it. It was making the regular dial sound. The two other Elves held our family and Lúthien at bay with their bows. Curufin pressed a few of the buttons and placed it to his ear. He nearly dropped the phone when he heard another voice at the other end, but then he smiled craftily and without a word returned it to its holder.

"Some kind of communication devise," he told his brothers, "A bit similar to father's Palantiri, but you can't see with it, and evidently you use these codes to talk to different people. They were trying to call for help, but we can't have that, can we?"

Celegorm shook his head and decided it was about time he took over things.

"All right, listen," he said. "Is everyone here?"

No one said anything.

"We are being obstinate, aren't we? Well, no matter. Curvo, check up stairs."

Curufin darted upstairs and came back dragging my brother, Jonathan, who was fighting fiercely to try to get away and protesting loudly.

"Be quiet," Curufin shouted fiercely. Jonathan shut up and looked hurt.

"Are you all right?" my mother called to Jonathan. He did not say anything.

"Are you all right?" she said, turning back to us. We nodded again. She had asked us three times already.

"Listen," Celegorm, "We don't want to be any trouble…"

Curufin did not look as if he agreed to this.

"But we seemed to have lost our way," he continued slowly, "and for some reason we were entrusted to your daughter."

"We don't know if she was telling the truth," Curufin protested.

"Why would she lie to us about it?" Celegorm asked.

"You're too soft for your own good," Curufin scoffed. "Maybe she is a sorceress."

"We don't allow any sorcery around here," my father said, "Magic is the work of the devil."

The Elves did not look thrilled to hear that. They exchanged glances, and then Curufin sniffed.

"Primitive thinking," he said sourly.

"I am calling a meeting," Caranthir said. He looked at my siblings and me, "I'll give you a few minutes to dress. But you should be back in no more than five minutes. If you try anything you will never see your parents again, understand?"

We grudgingly nodded our assent and went up.


	3. Chapter 3

**Okay, third chapter, finally...**

Chapter Three

We were to be prisoners in our home until I told them how they could return to their land, that's what they had concluded. There were lots of rules, more than I care to explain with lots of associated threats, which were really quite nasty and which I would rather not repeat that had a lot to do with death and mangling. We were to be watched almost constantly. Whenever we went out for any reason, they would come too. It was fortunate for them that neither of my parents had jobs. My father had been living off disability for years after being injured while working, and my mother had spent most of my life home schooling my siblings and I, a noble profession but one in which you loose money instead of gaining it. Then there was college.

"What is college?" asked Caranthir, who was at present flipping the light switch on and off in our living room. He seemed to find this highly amusing.

"College," said Curufin casually, from where he sat gazing at the computer screen, "is an educational institution. Students are taught there by professors who are learned in an area or areas of study."

I still wondered how they all knew English.

"What are you learning in college?" Celegorm asked.

"Oh, lots of things," I said quickly, "I took drawing and Theatre and chorale there last semester, and this coming semester I am going to learn Spanish and history and literature and acting…"

I was not quite sure why I was sounding so enthusiastic about my college. It had not been my dream college (the only dreams I had ever had of it where nightmares), or even a second or third greatest college; in fact, it had been on the lowest rung. I had not even considered going there; only my mother had suggested I apply to it in case I could not get into anything else. College for me had seemed a means of escape from my father's tyrannical rule, so the idea of attending a college so close by that I could commute from home was dreadful. My closest friend had gone to college out of state, so why couldn't I? When both my sister and I were accepted to all the colleges we had applied to, we thought for sure, we could get away, but alas! that was not to be. This was the only one we could afford, a cheap, public university that specialized in marine biology, but a poor education was better than none, and I was still determined to escape the dull confines of my home and the cold, lonely town of Harrington.

"It would be only Tuesdays and Thursdays," I pleaded, "all we do is drive there, go to classes, and go home."

Caranthir looked suspicious.

"And you swear you will not tell anyone about us?" he asked.

"Haven't I already?" I asked with sigh. The last few days had been spent convincing paranoid Elves not to kill us.

Curufin's eyes narrowed as he looked away from the computer to peer at me.

"I have told you before, and I will tell you again, I don't trust her," he told Caranthir as if I were not there.

Caranthir's eyes lit up.

"We shall make them swear an unbreakable oath."

_Why were the Fëanorians so obsessed with unbreakable oaths? _I wondered.

"I am sorry," I said, "but I will not do that."

"You will not?" scoffed Curufin jumping off of the chair and drawing his bow. _They also have a tendency to be very jumpy. _

"No, I cannot in a good conscience swear such an oath."

"Why not?" Caranthir asked.

"Well," I said, "say, what if one of you were hurt, and you needed healing. None of us are healers here."

"We will tend to our own wounds," Celegorm snapped.

"What if there was no time?" I queried.

"And have you ever had in all your life attained such fatal injuries in this environment?" he asked.

"No," I admitted.

"Well, then why won't you swear the oath?" Curufin asked, drawing his knife.

I wondered momentarily if this were the same knife that Beren would have used to remove the Silmaril from the Morgoth's crown.

"I have read accounts of people who have sworn unbreakable oaths that made their lives miserable and eventually drove them insane," I answered, "which has made me rather in dread of swearing such oaths. I promise though to the best of my ability I will not tell anyone about who you are or where you came from, satisfied?"

Curufin and Caranthir started talking to each other in Quenya. They spoke Sindarin and Quenya quite frequently; unfortunately I knew neither language. Then Curufin turned to me.

"Fine," he said sulkily, "you will go to your little university, and you will learn things, but you shall not go alone. You shall be accompanied at all times."

I hesitated.

"That would be quite awkward and very strange, if you were not enrolled yourselves," I said.

"How do you get enrolled then?" he snapped.

"You have to apply and get accepted, but you have to have a previous academic record and take the SAT test," I told him quietly.

"We'll get an academic record then," Curufin said smugly. I wondered what he meant by that.

* * *

><p>"So this is the fifth time you have ever been to one of these places?" Celegorm said looking around the movie theater with suspicious eyes. Chantal had already moved us around several times in order to get the "perfect" seat, one which was situated away from the noisy kids in front and not behind tall people, after all she was only five feet and three quarters of an inch.<p>

"Mhmm," Chantal and I replied simultaneously.

Celegorm looked somewhat annoyed. He wrapped an arm around Luthien, who pulled away, glaring at him. He sighed and shrugged his shoulders. He and Caranthir had placed themselves on either side of us, so that Luthien was sitting near Celegorm. I was near Caranthir, and Chantal was in the middle. Curufin had remained with our parents.

"Well, it's past two," Caranthir said with irritation, "why has not it started yet?"

"They're waiting for late arrivals," I informed him.

Caranthir mumbled something about importance of punctuality. He looked at the screen with suspicious apprehension. _I guess_, I thought, _I should be glad we are not watching in 3-D, or they might really think I am a sorceress or at least in league with wizards_.

"This movie," Celegorm told Luthien, trying to look well informed, "is about a porter named Tin who steals ships and finds treasure."

"No," said Luthien calmly, "it is about a reporter named Tintin, who buys a model ship and gets in a lot of trouble because of it."

Celegorm shook his head.

"No, my dear, I am afraid you are wrong. People do not get in trouble for _buying model ships_."

Luthien sighed but decided not to waste her time arguing with him.

The preview came on, a stupid one for _Madagascar_, which made everyone else in the theater laugh. Celegorm looked at the outrageous, talking animals and leapt to his feet, his eyes blazing with anger.

"This is a great insult to the race of animals!" he cried, "how can you laugh at their mockery!"

The people around him stared.

"Sit down," I hissed, "or they will make you leave the theatre."

Celegorm shook his fist one more time at the screen then reluctantly took his place, mumbling under his breath about the obscenity of it all.

The film then began.

"Why do they people look so strange?" Caranthir asked waving towards the animated Tintin.

"They are actually drawings that were brought to life," I whispered back.

Caranthir's eyes widened.

"Brought to life?" he asked.

"Yeah…" I said not quite sure how else to explain it.

Caranthir watched the movie intently.

"How is it done?" he asked in awe.

"This was actually done by filming live actors," Chantal began.

"Filming?" interrupted Caranthir.

"They were caught in a camera," she continued, "and then they were put on a computer, and done over in the setting so they were animations."

Caranthir looked horrified but said nothing. She offered him a piece of chocolate.

"No one got hurt," she reassured him. He did not look convinced. He sniffed the chocolate suspiciously and tasted it with the tip of his tongue. He took a small bite and smiled. Then he went back to looking at the screen to see if no one got hurt. Unfortunately, this was an action movie. People got hurt.

"It isn't real," I told him, "none of it really happened."

Slowly, I reached over and touched his hand. He grew stiff, so I pulled back.

"Have you ever seen a play?" I asked him gently.

He nodded.

"Well, this is like a play, except it is made so millions of people can see it at the same time. It is a form of entertainment, nothing more," my words sounded flat and useless to my tongue.

Caranthir nodded his head solemnly. I gave him a quick smile before looking away and noticing that Celegorm was slyly holding Luthien's hand, while she sat still enthralled by the movie.

**Would you be kind enough to review?**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Luthien was sitting on Chantal's bed gazing wistfully out the window at the darkening sky.

"I wonder if he is still alive," she said softly, her arms wrapped across her chest hugging herself, "I wonder if I will ever see him again," she looked at me with sorrowful grey eyes, "I must go to him, why will you not tell us how to go back?"

"I don't know how to," I said.

She sighed.

"That's right," she said, "you said that before, didn't you? Well, then do you think that old man will ever come back?"

"I don't know," I said shaking my head, "from what he said I thought he was in danger."

"What sort of danger?"

"I think…that someone might have been after him."

"Like who?"

I shrugged.

"Again I don't know."

"Dinner's ready!" my mother called up from the bottom of the staircase.

"Coming!" I called back down, and tried to give Luthien a hopeful smile.

I had just made it down the stairs, when my mother told me:

"Will you give Jonathan a personal invitation to dinner?"

I nodded and trudged back up the stairs. Getting my older brother to come down for dinner is no easy feat.

"Jonathan," I said knocking on the door, "it's time for dinner."

He didn't answer.

I opened the door a crack and peered in. He was lying on his bed on his stomach the end of a well-chewed pink hanger gripped between his teeth.

"Jonathan, dinner's ready," I said. He looked up at me with a pair of glazed dark grey eyes but said nothing, only giving out an indistinguishable moan.

I sighed and turned to leave.

"What is wrong with your brother?" Curufin's voice startled me, coming from the dark hall, "is he ill?"

I shook my head and brushed by him.

"Then what is it?" he asked following me.

"He…he has Down Syndrome," I told him.

"What's that?"

"It's a form of mental retardation."

"Oh," Curufin said softly, "I am sorry."

"For what?" I asked.

He said nothing more.

We walked the rest of the way to the kitchen in silence.

"There are too many lights on," my father complained looking around the kitchen.

"Yes, sweetie," my mother mumbled as she pulled a steaming glass casserole dish from the oven.

"You keep on saying that, but you never do anything about it," my father continued, "look around you. Look at all the wasted electricity."

"Mhmm," she agreed trying to balance the dish between her two potholdered hands, "Elina, would you put a board on the table for this?"

I quickly slipped past my father, grabbed the board, and ran it to the table.

My mother laid the casserole down.

"It seems that every time I turn around someone has turned another light on," my father was still at it. I ducked past him against and turned the main light that went over the cooking part of the kitchen off, in an effort to shut him up. He looked critically at the lights over the stove and sink but sat down with a grunt in his place at the table. Our table could seat only six people, seven at the max if you crammed three people on the small bench, but Caranthir and Celegorm preferred to sit in the front room, where they also slept on a futon. Curufin enjoyed sitting at the head of the table and watching us until we felt uncomfortable. Chantal, Luthien, and I sat together on the bench. We sat in silence for a while. Then, I asked the inevitable question:

"Whose turn is to pray?"

"I don't know," my mother said scrunching up her forehead in thought, "Chantal prayed, and then I think you prayed and then I must have prayed last," she looked at our father, "which means it is your turn."

"I think I prayed last time," my father said in irritation. He always thinks he prayed last.

"You are hardly ever here," my mother told him, 'so every time you are, it's come to your turn, besides it's a privilege to pray."

"Well, it seemed like I am privileged too often," he remarked. My mother gave him a sharp look, and he closed his eyes and bent his head.

After thanks had been given for the food, Curufin spoke up.

"We have been accepted to your university," he told me with a sly smile.

"That's nice," I mumbled, ladling vegetarian shepherd's pie onto my plate.

"Isn't it?" he said with glee, "and I and Caranthir are going to go all of your classes and keep a good eye on you."

_Caranthir?_ I thought, _wouldn't he prefer Celegorm, who he seemed to like a whole lot better to come along? Unless, Celegorm will be using our time away to benefit his wooing of Luthien. Very clever, Curufin._

Indeed Curufin looked very smug as he placed his glass of milk to his lips. Luthien scowled at him.

"We are eating late again," my father said glancing at the clock. It was eight o'clock.

My mother was eating so she did not answer.

"Eating late is not good for you digestion," he continued, " a doctor on TV said…"

"Shut up!" Curufin snapped.

My father looked aghast. No one said, "shut up" in our family and most definitely not to my father. As he considered himself the head of the household, he was not used to being bossed around.

"All of your mealtime conversations seem to be about death or disease," Curufin growled, "I am tired of it. Talk about happy things."

He gazed at all threateningly.

There was an awkward silence in the room.

"The world is suppose to end this year," Chantal said obstinately.

Curufin glared at her.

Just then Leila sprang. She had been creeping very carefully up towards Laurel and now without warning she pounced on the poor sleeping dog's head, her yellow green eyes glowing with evil pleasure. Laurel startled leapt to her feet and let out a small growl. The cat danced about her happily batting her tale. Laurel chased Leila across the floor, until Leila slipped into the small corridor that adjoined the kitchen and living room and lay down looking very seductive, ready to attack if anyone got anywhere close, a crafty smile on her small white and grey face.

"Evil Leila kissa*," I hissed at her, "spawn of Morgoth."

Leila only looked innocent.

Curufin gave me a knowing glance, but I was not sure what it meant.

"Kiitos*," I said thanking my mother for the meal, as I had since childhood, "and hyvää yötä*."

"Ole Hyvää*," she said sliding her plate into the dishwasher, "you are going up already?"

I nodded.

"Well, hyvää yötä then," she bent down to kiss my cheek.

I kissed her back and went up stairs.

* * *

><p>"So this is your little university," Curufin said, looking with disdain at the small cropping on brick buildings.<p>

"_Our _university now," I reminded him.

He shrugged and looked around. Caranthir was next to him. They were both dressed in sportswear bought a few days ago from Renny's but still looked out of place with their long black hair and flawless angular faces.

"Come on," said Chantal crossly, "or we will be late for class."

Chantal abhors the idea of being late. She would rather be a quarter hour early than a minute late.

We trudged up the stairs of Torrey Hall, a dismal stair it was all grey with grey walls and a dull off-color white ceiling and floors to match. My sister and I like to pretend a dungeon.

We entered Torrey 234 and looked around for a place to sit. Alexis, a girl I knew from last semester, gave me a tired smile. I smiled back. Alexis was the leader of the Christian Crusades for Christ (CRU) on campus. Those meeting, held weekly, were the only times I met with other kids my age outside of class. There were still four empty seats against the opposite wall, so we went to take them. The chairs and tables in the room formed three sides of a square with the teacher's desk forming a short fourth side.

Suddenly a pretty girl with long blond hair and dark framed glasses came rushing over to us. I recognized her as Lacie, another girl from CRU.

"Hi, Elina," she said with a warm smile, "I just wanted to thank you for the book you gave me. I was going to write you a letter, but I lost your address. Well, anyway I wanted to thank you. I was so excited!"

"You are welcome," I said smiling back.

"I love you guys…" she said before taking her seat as the Spanish teacher came in. She was the teacher's aid.

"Book?" Caranthir whispered.

I pretended I did not hear him. I had a feeling it would not be a good

idea to tell him about _The Children of Húrin. _Curufin was looking after Lacie with a strange glint in his eyes. I found that rather troubling.

The Spanish teacher was actually not one of the university's professors but the director of the library. She had volunteered to teach these classes because she had studied the language and otherwise there would have been no foreign language at all, which I thought quite strange considering the fact that you need two foreign languages to graduate. Anyway, Señora Rey, as we were to call her, started off with asking us to all pick a Spanish name. She went around the tables asking each of us if we had a name from high school or if there was one we liked. She walked quietly bending down a little to talk to each person in turn. Her brown hair was in a neat ponytail at the back of her neck. She was wearing a closefitting black shirt, blue pants, and a white scarf.

"Would you like to keep your name?" she asked me when it came my turn. I looked up from the paper where I had been scribbling and erasing names.

"Um, I suppose so, though I don't think it's a Spanish name," I said nervously, "I mean, my name is "Elina" with an 'i', I think that in Spanish one, there is another 'e'."

"I think that you are probably right," Señora Rey said. She had a deep, quiet, swooping voice. I liked it. I have always had this thing about voices. I think I would be more tempted by a beautiful voice than beautiful looks. I mused about how no one made Saruman sounded as beautiful as I imagined him sounding.

"Elena," Señora Rey said as if she were feeling the depth of the word, then she passed on to Chantal, who had not picked out an name yet, neither had Caranthir or Curufin. We spent the rest of the Spanish class examining cognates.

The next class, World Literature, was held in the same room. It was a second year class, but Chantal and I had managed to get into it because our counselors thought we had enough experience in literature since we had studied it extensively in high school. I do not know how the Elves had managed to get themselves in, but I am sure that Curufin must have pulled softly sly. The other students came in boisterously shouting insults at each other and laughing loudly. They all knew each other and were having a reunion of sorts.

"What is a 'dick'?" Caranthir whispered.

"Um, it's a boy's name," I half-lied.

"Well, he must have done something awful if they keep on telling each other not to be him," the Elf replied.

"Probably," I said opening the cover of my notebook and pretending to be absorbed in reading the notes I had made for Intro to Theatre last year.

Chantal took out a small electronic dictionary from my backpack, wrote something on its screen and handed it to me.

_Pleasant isn't it?_

_No, not really. _I typed back.

_I didn't think so._

"What are you doing?" Curufin hissed.

"Nothing," I said turning off the dictionary and sliding it onto the desk.

Just then, Professor Bertrand Trocasen walked in. The room exploded in an uproar of noise. There was much ado about how he was actually early. One student took a picture of him pointing at the clock. The professor was rather short man with balding grey hair and a smart looking face.

We made our way through another introductory class and ate lunch at the cafeteria.

I was beginning to think that things were going quite better than I had expected, and then she had to do it.

* * *

><p>Finnish Translations:<p>

kiitos-thank you

hyvää yötä-good night

ole hyvää-you are welcome, literally "be good"

kissa-cat


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Robin Candle, an ordinary looking middle-aged woman with graying hair and a degree in history, had dragged us through another boring syllabus, when she suddenly stopped and looked at the clock.

"I told you I was going to show you a video, didn't I?" she half mumbled. There was agreement from across the room, though I remained silent, my feet pressed against the floor.

"Well, I had better do that before it gets too late."

Candle had a student set up the video. It was called _World History in Seven Minutes. _It began:

Once upon a time there was nothing, neither time nor space…

I smirked at the fairytale beginning.

Then about 13 billion years ago, energy and matter exploded out of the emptiness…

Right, I thought, so if there was nothing where did the energy and matter suddenly come from?

…_and the universe was born._

"What is this?" Caranthir snarled glaring and gesturing at the screen. The teacher did not seem to notice; well she did say she was rather deaf.

The first stars lit up about 1 billion years after the birth of the universe…

"Are you suggesting we should believe this rubbish?" Caranthir asked raising his voice.

The teacher turned to him a look of confusion spreading across her face.

"It is current scientific thought," she said.

"Current scientific rubbish," Curufin smirked.

Candle folded her arms and looked from one to the other. I was trying hard not to laugh.

"Are you two trying to cause trouble?" she said sternly.

"No, ma'am," Curufin said quickly, "we merely do not believe your theory of creation. If you want to believe that nothing created the world, and that we all somehow randomly came from what it created, that's fine with me."

He flashed the teacher a beautiful smile that left the teacher speechless.

But Caranthir was not finished.

"I can see no reason that you should be paid to tell others lies," he said seriously.

"Well," she said still rather taken back by all this, "what do you believe?"

"The Valar have told us that the world was created by the Music of the Ainur," he replied. "Eru Ilúvatar, who has been always, directed the world's greatest music that showed the world and all its history! From this music came everything around us that we see, and this music came from Eru's thought.'

There was chorus of laughter from the other classmates.

"The world was made from music?" one girl smirked, "how can you prove that?"

Caranthir's cheeks turned an odd shade of scarlet but not from embarrassment. I thought it might be good to remove him from the situation but could think of no way how. I shot Chantal a worried look, and she shot one back.

"How can you prove the world was created from nothing?" he shot back.

"It was created from a large explosion," she said snobbishly.

"Which came from nothing," Caranthir said.

"Some of the greatest human minds have worked together to prove this theory," Candle told him.

"Well, show me the proof," he replied.

"It's more complicated than that," she said with a sigh then glanced back at the clock, "anyway we've run out of time."

A few of the students gave the Elves sour looks, while others stared at them with amused interest, and a few girls, well, just looked interested.

We headed over to Performing Arts Center, where "Fundamentals of Acting" was being held. Once we had all gathered together at the back of auditorium, which looked sort of like an old gymnasium (because it was) our acting instructor, Arthur Frisk, looked down critically at our feet.

"Next time, I'll have you remove your shoes before you come down," he said.

Frisk was an odd, wiry sort of man, middle aged with a good deal of silver hair on his head and wide spectacles. Chantal and I knew him from the semester before when we had had him for _Intro to Theatre_.

"Because, you see," he continued, "theater is sacred, and it doesn't go very well with our janitor."

"Now," he said staring at us, "this is going to be really hard work, so if any of you think that you already have too much to handle, you should drop this class, and if any of you just don't like to work, you should drop this class, because I am expecting you to work on this, and if you cannot make it too many of our meetings, you should definitely drop this class. A lot of this will be in class work."

After he was done convincing us to drop his class he went on to say:

"Now drama really is made up of only two things, and once you have those you have acting, can anyone tell me what those are?"

He looked around and spotted Chantal and I.

"You guys, you took _Intro to Theatre _last semester, you must know."

My mind chose this moment to go blank.

"Conflict?" Chantal suggested.

"Com'on, com'on, you remember this" he said snapping his fingers in front of her face.

She shook her head.

He turned to the group at large and exclaimed quite joyfully:

"Sex and Violence!"

Caranthir raised his eyebrows. Curufin smiled slyly.

"We have that covered," he whispered to his brother.

I did not find that comment in the least reassuring.

"I mean," continued Arthur Frisk excitedly, "look at the old Greek plays. They were filled with sex and violence. A man kills his father and marries his mother! A wife kills her husband, and then her son kills her! And on and on and on…Basically they break all the established taboos. The wonderful thing about theater is that you can do anything that you want-kill, murder, rob, sleep with someone-safely! No one gets hurt."

Curufin looked incredulously at him.

"How can one murder someone without anyone getting hurt?" he asked.

Frisk turned to him with a grin.

"Because you don't really kill that person. It's all an illusion. That's what Theater is, an illusion."

"Oh," Curufin looked rather disappointed, "so no real violence?"

"No, no, no," the teacher laughed, "they wouldn't allow that here. Now we are going to start with some exercises. Gather in a circle; make me your center. I want all of you to put your hands over your diaphragms and say "hah" with me—loudly."

He gave my sister and me a pointed look. We were rather known for our soft, quiet voices.

We all shouted "hah" a few times, and then Frisk turned to physical exercises, stretches and such.

"Now," Frisk said, "I want you all to slowly walk forwards, eyes half shut, soft focus, move towards the center of the circle arms outstretched, come towards me very slowly, pretend that you are blind, don't stop till you are touching someone else."

Caranthir gave me glance that seemed to read "is he crazy?" I shrugged. Frisk had told us quiet proudly a few times that he had failed a sanity test, so who was I to contradict him? Slowly, like wraiths, we moved inward. When we were all gathered close together, the teacher smiled.

"We have now entered a state of consciousness where we can be anyone we want to be."

Caranthir's fingers touched my arm. I turned to find him close by my side, keeping a close eye on Frisk.

"I…I," the teacher began peering at each one of us in turn, "am Rumpelstiltskin!"

He started groping forward, reaching out as he were going to grab someone. Students jumped back laughing, but Caranthir stood his ground staring with confusion and suspicion at Frisk.

"What is this?" he asked,"some sort of game?"

"This," said Arthur Frisk, "is acting."


	6. Chapter 6

I was in the library again, printing out three copies of an eight-page play. Weeks had past since that fateful day when a box had been thrust into my arms. It was nearing the end of March, March thirtieth to be exact, my sister's birthday. The morning had gone all right. Normal day things, the party was happening tomorrow. I got up, ate breakfast, brushed my teeth, brushed my long, thick, wild, unbrushable, golden brown hair, listened to Chantal complain about the "happy birthdays" she got from people on facebook and how depressed they made her feel, read something, ate lunch, grabbed my laptop, and hurried into the car. My mother drove me to Elmer's discount store so I could buy presents for Chantal, who was staying home from the library today, so she could bake her own cake. I rush shopped, picking up random things she might like or need: a Donavan CD, an old, funny edition of Sherlock Holmes made in the fifties, and an address book. It was always hard to shop for someone who was almost constantly at your side. Then I got back in the car and arrived at the library a couple minutes before two. I turned everything on and set to work on the copies.

Caranthir had come with me, of course, to keep an eye on "the sorceress" or whatever he thought I was now. I could never be sure. He had found a nice little hiding place, for behind the librarian's desk there is a staircase that goes down to the basement. He would sit on the bottom of this behind boxes of books. He did this mainly as a favor to me, because I had accused him once of scaring away all our clients with his hard stares, which was quite true, but I thought that were probably other reasons he was not telling me.

My mind was rather clouded that day, and I forgot that you could make three copies of a page at once, so I spent about an hour copying each page of the play three times. Almost as soon as I had finished the head librarian strode in, her face set in its permanent sour expression. A package was tucked under her arm.

"Hello," she said giving me a brief glance before walking over to the desk.

"Hello," I repeated back, walking across the room towards her.

"This book," she said lying it down on the desk "is from the interlibrary loan."

I nodded, waiting for further instructions.

She flipped through the library's logbook.

"Miriam ordered this book for a patron," she said, looking again at the package. Slowly she ripped it open. I watched her hands, the long withered fingers marked with age spots. There was a gold ring with a green stone on her wedding finger. I remembered that her husband had died not long ago. I wondered what her life had been like, if it had always been hard, and if that was why she was never happy. I wondered if she had loved her husband, but questions like those go unanswered. I would never dare to ask.

"Hmmm, that's strange," she mumbled to herself, "there's no pocket, or papers. I'll have to call the library."

She called the Bangor Library while I stood to the side feeling stupid and useless. She got the answering machine and made it clear that she wanted to speak to the circularly desk.

"All right," she said finally looking at me, her face was drawn, her eyes two spots of light under heavy lids, above a hooked nose, "when they call back write down the instructions they give you on here."

She flipped a piece of paper over and wrote "instructions for interlibrary loan book" on the back.

"See if we should glue on a pocket or do something else, and find out when its due back. They usually give about a month, and then we take a week from that to make sure it gets sent back in time. Then if you feel confidant enough in what you know you can call the patron, if not you can leave it for Miriam, she will be here on Monday."

"Okay," I said, nodding my head.

"I think that's all," she said but stood there a moment as if she was not certain. Her eyes started to rove around the room, slowly inspecting everything. I was worried that she might spot Caranthir.

"There are two books," I said pushing gentling on a book stack, "that were due back January eighth, but I can't seem to find their cards."

"They've probably been renewed," she said giving me a patronizing look, "search under the other dates."

"I tried, but…"

"Listen, I've got a dog in the car who eats paper," she said condescendingly, "you'll manage."

She left then, leaving me feeling lost. The whole library was so disorganized that I could hardly find anything. I had already had to call Joan, another worker, that day to find out where a patron's seed order was. The Bangor library called the moment after the head librarian left. I picked up the phone and spoke in the nervous, shaky but somewhat cheery voice of a phone phobic:

"Hello, Gallison Memorial Library."

"This is the circularly desk of Bangor Library. You called."

"Yes, um, we got an interlibrary loan book, from Rice Public Library in Kittery, its called _Shadow of the Titanic_. It hasn't got a pocket, and we were wondering," It was nice to hide behind the word we_ "_if we should stick one on it or…"

"No," said the voice on the other side on the phone; it was a man's voice, deep and firm, "we don't do that. In such cases we paperclip things to the front page, you know what I mean?"

I looked about me to see if we even had paperclips. I spotted one and nodded my agreement, before realizing that nods could not be conveyed over the phone.

"Um, yeah, okay, paperclips, well, thank you."

"You are welcome."

A pause. Was there something else? I couldn't think of anything.

"Well, good bye."

"Oh, yes, good-bye," said the man on the other side of the phone as if I had startled him out of a thought.

I put the receiver down. Then it hit me. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have forgotten to ask him the return date? Why, oh, why did I always freak out when talking on the phone? I could not find the phone number for the Bangor Library. I shrugged it off, not really it still nagged at my mind, but I realized that I could not really do anything about it, so I opened up my laptop, which I had set down on a table across the room. There was not a lot of work to do in the library usually, which left me a lot of time to write, read, or chat with my friends on fan fiction. I was feeling too depressed and uninspired to write anything. The pressure of three angry and disappointed Fëanorians was getting to me, and besides I had always had bad mood swings.

The phone rang again. This time it was Chantal. She needed me to go on facebook to give directions to a friend from college on how to get to our house. I went to facebook, Chantal was logged in—I hardly ever go on facebook, there is nothing I can think to say—so I went to her messages and finished giving the directions. Then I checked both the Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion archives but could find nothing that peaked my interested. All the plots for the Lord of the Rings seemed the same, a 10th walker, or Eomer/Lothiriel stories, or, well, just something with Legolas. The Silmarillion archive had just not been updated very much lately, except by my sister who had decided to celebrate her birthday with a horror/angst story about Maedhros having a nightmare about killing Fingon, which I would have read except just then I was interrupted by another call.

"Do you have any children's activities planned for April?" asked the woman on the other end.

Children's activities…here? Impossible! We had never had children's activities. The head librarian, well, let's just say she didn't like children very much. Nevertheless, just in case something bizarre had happened I looked over the calendar carefully. No, just as I thought, no children's activities.

"No," I said, "no, I don't think so. I'm sorry."

She said good-bye, and I hung the phone up and drew a deep breath. I looked around the room, walked its length back and forth, and checked the backroom. A girl was sprawled on the floor, a large basket of crayons beside her, which she dug into once in awhile to get a new color. She was a slim teenager with thick messy blond hair who came here often with her worker, a young woman who liked Danielle Steele novels. They came quiet often. The worker glanced up and gave me a faint smile. I returned it as best I could, and walked back into the front room. I picked up _Memoirs of a Geisha_, from where I had left it near the printer. I was nearly finished with it, but I was not eager to meets its end. I carried it back over to my laptop and set it down. I checked my messages for fanfiction and found I had one. It was long message from someone who had reviewed my Tintin fic. I had only written three chapters and a prologue for that story, but I already had thirty-one reviews, which made me feel rather guilty, but the number of stories in the archive was rather minute, so that probably would explain it. I started to reply to the message, when a man walked into the library. He looked around and then saw me and smiled. I had never seen him before. He was not very tall, nor very short, dressed casually in a grey shirt and blue jeans. His skin a light tan, his hair and moustache grey, his eyes brown.

"I thought that…" he said.

He probably thought what many people thought that the head librarian worked on Friday. Well, she used to work that day, until she volunteered me to be a librarian last August and gave me Friday. Most people seemed to find me a relief after the stern, all seeing woman, but others came asking for information that only she knew and left disappointed.

"Do you work here?"

"Yes."

"Can I use the computer?"

"Yes."

_Of course. That's what they are there for._

He got on the computer, and another man walked in. He was a stout man with a pale, flat face, thin, messy white hair, pale eyes, and a large flat nose. He wore overalls and was known for being rather simple, once he bought three hundred dollars worth of redwood tree saplings that he said he couldn't afford. He had come by several times before, always to use our photocopier, and today was no different. He walked over to the photocopier.

"It keeps saying "no ink left", what does that mean?" the pale man asked a few minutes later.

_That's there is no ink left, what else? _But I was not that rude. I got up and walked over to him. I guessed that my twenty-four pages had used up the rest of the ink. I sighed.

"There's no more ink left," I said softly.

"Well," said the pale man looking down at the drawer where paper was kept, "do you know where they keep the ink?"

I looked in the drawer, but, of course, the ink was not there.

"No," I said honestly.

"Well, even if we did find it, there would probably not be anyone around who would know how to put it in."

"I would," said the man with the moustache who was sitting at the computer nearest the photocopier.

"Well, they're not important. I was just coming back from the Cherryfield Library, and I didn't get to get all of 'em done," the pale one mumbled, "I guess it was just not destined that I should finish these today."

"I'll try to find the ink," I said, not knowing what else to say.

I went of to the desk and opened a drawer in which the library keys were kept, some for the door, some for the drop box, and one for the closet were the supplies were kept. It took me awhile to find that one. I glanced down the stairs to check on Caranthir, but he seemed pretty content, totally absorbed in a Harry Potter book. Evidently he thought that he could learn somewhat of modern magic from them. He had already tried to draw a connection between the protaganist and me because we both wore glasses, but I reminded him that lots of people wore glasses, so that didn't prove anything.

Meanwhile the pale man looked like he might have a break down, muttering incoherently about having to win some fight.

"What are you fighting against?" the man with the moustache asked.

"Oh, I am fighting. A very hard struggle…but I can't give up…not now…."

"I asked what are you fighting against?"

"I am fighting against…the…the…the government…more than that…the whole world."

The pale man said his eyes flashing, his words loose and barely audible.

"What are fighting against?" the man with the moustache repeated.

"Listen can-," said the pale man angrily, "can you understand English?"

"Yeah, sure I can understand English. I just want to know what you are fighting."

"I am fighting the world, the whole world."

"That must be pretty hard."

"Yeah, yeah, it is, but I can't give up. Two thousand years our savior, Jesus Christ, came to this earth, and he fought for justice, and I am going to do the same."

"So you read the Good Book everyday, huh?"

"No, no, I used to, but I haven't been. But there is so much corruption, so many bad things are happening. I have to…"

"What you so pissed off about?"

"I'll tell, tell you," the pale man's voice was growing steadily louder and clearer and angrier, "this world is coming to its end and not many are going to be saved."

"I know, and I am not going to be one of them," the man with moustache muttered, but the pale man didn't seem to hear him.

"The government, it's just so corrupt, so corrupt," his voice droned down and then rose again steadily, "you know what the FBI did?"

"No, what did they do?"

"Well, it's more like what they didn't do…they knew about 9/11 before hand, but they didn't do anything about it. That's how bad they are. They are all going to burn in hell…no, no, Jesus said we shouldn't judge."

"What are you talking about?"

"The FBI they knew that the twin towers were going to fall, but they didn't care. They didn't care…and they took the credit for my work. They hate me because they know I will expose them."

"Do you work for the government?"

"No, no, but I've been to the White House, the Pentagon. I know the politicians. I talked with Joe Kennedy, and then later I found Robert Kennedy's car in the field…in the field. You know there must have been something up there."

"Where are you from, what's your job?"

"I've been everywhere. I am a jack-of-all-trades. I cleaned dishes, cleaned toilets…"

"Where were you educated?"

"I studied philosophy at Brown's University, but I was all self taught. You know what I mean. You never learn anything unless you learn it yourself."

"Right, right, but did you ever work for the government?"

"No, no, never worked for the government."

"Ever been inside of a government building?"

"Yeah, no, they stole my work. I am fighting for justice, but not just for myself…no I am not selfish, but for everyone. Someone gotta write a book about this stuff. It's all there waiting to go off like a bombshell, and when it does there's going to be a revolution."

"I'm sure."

A pause. I settled back down in my chair, fascinated, wondering what would happen next. I had not been able to find the ink, but that was no surprise. I began thinking of ways to change this so it would make a story, even visualizing myself as a minor character. The shy, young librarian who was unsure whether to start laughing or jump up and join his cause.

"But I need a writer," the pale man continued, "I've been contacting writers I know. A lot of people are going to be interested in this story. It will make a lot of money. I am not interested in the money though, let the writer have it. The problem here though is that people are so ignorant. Lots of people they don't even know how to speak English. Back in Massachusetts they were doing things thirty years ago what we are just starting here today."

"I know what you mean," the man with the moustache said, "People are very ignorant here."

Since the conversation had dulled down to the rather overdone conversation about how everyone living in Down East Maine is stupid I turned back to my laptop. Soon however the pale man left, and the man with the moustache called me over to help with printing out a picture of his daughter, who he had not seen in a year because she was in college in Colorado or somewhere like that. (The printer that was connected to the computer still had ink, just not the photocopier). Afterwards, I went back to my chair and tried to think of something to write.

"So why aren't you in school?" the man with the moustache asked.

"It's spring break," I answered curtly.

"Spring break, now? You are in college?"

"Yes."

"Well, congratulations!" he said grinning.

"Thank you."

I was not really quite sure why people got so excited to hear that I was in college. For a few weeks I had to endure the compliments of being told how the town was so proud of my sister and I for making it on the Dean's List, but really I didn't see it as such a great achievement. My grades were quite high. I worked hard to get them, but I didn't understand why they should be a matter of pride. Perhaps I am just a difficult person to please.

"So what year are you in?"

"I am a freshman."

"Well, congratulations. What are you majoring in?"

"Fine Art."

"Fine Art? Really?" he said his eyes and his grin widening, "what art classes have you taken?"

"Drawing…and acting."

"Acting? Really? I can't wait to see you on the silver screen. What are you planning to movies, plays, Broadway?"

"I have not decided yet," I said vaguely startled that anyone had actually paid attention to me. I was used to being ignored, even prided myself in my invisibility.

"Well, let me tell you Broadway is beautiful. The first time I saw a play on Broadway, it was a class field trip. We went to see Oliver Twist. It was wonderful. There is nothing like a Broadway play."

He then proceeded to tell me about all the plays he had seen: West Side Story, Les Miserables, etc.,

"Have you ever gone to see a play?" he asked.

"Well, yes."

"Where?"

"The Grand in Ellsworth."

He shook his head contemptuously.

"They have some wonderful playhouses in Philadelphia, and of course you should get some friends together and drive down to New York and visit Broadway."

I could have coldly told him that it would be nice if I had enough money to spend upon on such extravagances or screamed at him in anger at being denied such opportunity, but I chose to smile and nod instead.

"You should go places, do things! You should always follow your dreams, and if you have a boyfriend, you should not follow his dreams you should follow your dreams. Don't ever give up yours dreams for some guy, all right?"

He said guy as if it were an insult.

"All right," I said.

"Are you happy with your life?"

I wondered why he was asking me this.

"It's all right," I said, though the words were hard to draw out.

"I think you have been sheltered most of your life, yes?"

"Yes."

"But you can't do that. You've got to live. You only have one life. You have to make the most of it."

I nodded.

"So how old are you?"

"Eighteen."

"You are exactly my daughter's age, when's your birthday?"

"July first."

"Mine's the twenty-fifth of July. My daughter is younger than you then, hers is the twelfth of December. What's your sign?"

"My sign?"

"Yeah, your zodiac signs."

"I…don't know."

"You don't know?"

I shook my head.

"How come you don't know your own sign? Did you ever have a boyfriend?"

"No?"

"Well, that's why. Boyfriends and girlfriends always tell each other their sign, to see if they will get along. But since you haven't had a boyfriend…you're eighteen, and you haven't had a boyfriend."

"No."

"But you're beautiful!"

I shrugged.

"Why haven't you had a boyfriend?"

He acted as if it was the strangest and most disturbing thing in the world.

"Do you _like_ girls?"

"No."

"So do you like boys?"

"I don't know."

"Why haven't you got a boyfriend?" he mumbled.

"I guess I just haven't met many boys."

"Not met many boys. What aren't there many boys around?"

"No."

"That's strange. Do you want a boyfriend?"

"I don't know, maybe," I answered trying to sound totally disinterested but not completely weird at the same time.

"I am going to find a boyfriend for you."

_What?_

"I am going to pick out a really nice guy, and I am going to bring him here. When do you next work?"

"Next Friday, I work here every Friday," I said, perplexed but intrigued.

"Okay," he said, "well then, it's settled I'll bring someone by next Friday. Is it all right if he looks like Han Doro?"

"Who?"

"Like someone from Honduras," he said more clearer this time, 'a country just south of Mexico."

"Oh, Honduras, yes I know what you mean."

"What race are you anyway?"

"Race?"

"Yeah, what race?"

"Well, my mother is Finnish…"

"How about your father?"

"He is part French, part Native American…"

"Are you telling me your father is French and Indian? My what beautiful combination, don't you think it's beautiful?"

"I guess so."

"Well, all right, I'll be going."

He left. It was almost closing time, near six. Caranthir came out.

"What was that all about?"

I shrugged.

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"Is if customary in your land for strangers to pick a maiden's mate?"

"No."

"Then why didn't you say anything, do anything to stop him?"

"Why does it bother you? Why should you care about what I do as long as I get you back to Middle-earth?"

"You said you couldn't."

"Do you now believe me?"

"I don't see why you didn't tell this man to mind his own business."

"I don't see why you let it bother you."

"I wonder what we would be doing."

"What?"

"I wonder what we would be doing if we were back in Middle-earth."

"I don't know."

"I still don't understand why you didn't tell him off? Or why he…"

"Listen, don't worry. He'll forget. I will remember, but he will forget."


	7. Chapter 7

Why was I not crying? The others about me were. Chantal was leaving, and her eyes were wet. My mother was crying too, and so was my mother's friend, whose son was driving Chantal to the airport, but I was not crying. I stood there smiling saying good-bye. Why wasn't I crying? There must be something wrong with my eyes I thought. They should cry at moments like this, but they did not seem to understand that. They cried over silly things when I was alone, but here and now…was I crying? I wondered. No, everything was so clear. And this was not the first time they had failed me. I had not cried when my little brother died nor had I cried at his funeral; Chantal had been shaking with tears, Lauren, our friend, stood by comforting her, but I stood tearless, silent, distant, angry and alone. I did not cry when I bid Lauren good-bye before she left me to go live in Ireland. My eyes still would not cry.

_Was I so proud that I could show no one my emotions?_ I wondered as I climbed into the front passenger seat. _Or am I just incapable of showing people my true feelings?_ Curufin gave me a strange look from the back seat. I returned it with a quizzical one. He shrugged. I handed him a pathetic fake smile and buckled myself in.

"So, she's finally off to Finland," my mother said driving along.

I nodded.

Curufin murmured something in annoyance. Whether it was in Sindarin or Quenya I could not tell. The Elves had not been exactly thrilled that one of their prisoners had gotten free, but between my mother, Chantal and myself we had managed to make them believe it was necessary.

"Could we have hot pockets for dinner?" I asked quickly. It had one of the many things I had been pondering in my mind that day and probably the least important.

My mother smiled. I am not sure why she smiled. It seemed a very strange thing to say when one was loosing one's closest and truest companion, even for so short a period as a month. Truth be told, since the time Chantal was born we had not been a day away from each other. We had shared the same room, the same life, the same friends. We almost always knew what the other thought and from one glance could tell the other's feelings. Yet at this moment I felt somewhat light headed and free. I had been worrying about this for the last semester and now that it had happened, the anticipation had been cut, and I had yet to wait before the loneliness set in.

"What are hot pockets?" Curufin asked.

"Unhealthy, pockets of dough usually filled with some sort of meat and cheese and occasionally a vegetable," I answered unenthusiastically.

Curufin looked rather confused, which made me smile a little. He looked very cute when he was confused. Not to say that he did not look attractive all the time, but it was usually the sort of attractiveness one could only look at in awe as one would look at a beautiful piece of art, now he looked rather like an annoyed and perplexed schoolboy with nobler features.

"Oh," he said, "and you enjoy eating these things?"

"I did," I said, "but it has been awhile, so who knows."

Curufin lost interest and went back to the sudoku puzzle. We went to the store and then home.

* * *

><p>I spent the next few days busying myself with school as it was drawing to a close. Then finally it was the last day of school, well, no not really, there was going to be a history final, and then I had a May term a couple weeks later, but it was the last day of normal school, if that meant anything. We, the rest of the family besides Chantal, and the elves, were all settled down at the table, when Luthien surprised us all by making a sudden statement, right in the middle of one of my father's dark and ominous prophecy dreams.<p>

"I want to see the university," she said firmly.

All eyes turned to her. She rarely said anything usually lost in pining for her Beren, but somehow something seemed to have changed in her that morning, as if she had realized that crying for what she wanted would not get her anywhere, and that she had to take life like it was, at least for now.

"Whatever for," grumbled Curufin, as he tore up his fried egg with his fork.

"I just want to see what its like, that's all," she said carefully, sprinkling salt on her eggs and looking pleadingly at her captors.

Celegorm bit his lip.

"I don't think that would be a good idea," Curufin said before his brother could get soft hearted on him.

"Why not?" Luthien demanded.

"You are far too beautiful a maiden to grace such unsightly halls," Curufin said with a smile.

Luthien rolled her eyes and glared rather hotly at Curufin. Then she turned on Celegorm her features going soft.

"Celegorm," she whispered, "do you not want to see what sort of building that your brothers have been visiting for the past three months?"

Celegorm hesitated, taking a gulp of orange juice rather than answer the question.

But Luthien was not so easily deterred.

"Well?" she said, standing up, empty plate in hand.

"I, I do not know," Celegorm mumbled.

"I think it would be a bad idea," Curufin asserted, also standing up.

I being in a rather devilish mood and not wanting to hear another pointless argument, jerked my head up and snapped.

"Why not? Why shouldn't she go?" I shook my head and got up from the table brushing past Curufin and putting my plate and glass in the dishwasher.

"Because she is Luthien daughter of Thingol," Caranthir began, looking a bit surprised and even amused by my sudden outburst.

"Fairest of all the Children of Ilúvatar," added Curufin, "and to see her is to know love."

He smiled again at Luthien, who continued to keep up her glare though by this time it had gone cold.

"What would be so harmful about me going there one day to see it," the elf maiden asked, "Chantal has told me that other relations go and sit in at classes."

"Yes, but…"

"If I stay cooped up here one more day," Luthien growled, "I shall surely go mad and hang myself."

At this statement, Celegorm looked extremely shocked and worried.

"You would not do such a thing," Caranthir countered.

"Oh," Luthien said with a raise of an eyebrow, "and who made you the expert on my mind?"

Caranthir's eyes and cheeks alit with flame, but all he did was shrug and turn to Curufin.

"Well?" he asked.

Curufin sighed and looked rather subdued as he glanced at Celegorm.

"We will both go then," Celegorm affirmed.

Luthien smiled at Celegorm. No, she did not throw her arms around him and squeal with delight and kiss him like some excited teenaged girl, but she may as well have, by the way Celegorm blushed and looked pleased.

So it was settled, and without further argument we organized ourselves and left for the school.

When we got to there, I had to drop off some books at the library and then make a dash for the PAC (Performing Arts Center), where we were having our Spanish class that morning. We were going to be taught the flamenco that day.

We forced ourselves through the exam and then waited for the dance instructor to show up. This took some time.

When she did finally come she was looked tired. She put on a video, which showed Spanish flamenco dancers. Then she began giving us simple steps to do. Some of the students refused to even come out and try it, but I found it rather fun until I noticed Luthien. She was dancing better than the dancers on the tape. Although the Elves wove enchantments about themselves to look more human to the other students, I still felt uneasy. I always thought something was going to give them away.

"Have you ever taken flamenco lessons before?" the teacher asked her.

Luthien shook her head. "I just love to dance," she said shyly.

The teacher smiled. "Well, you certainly have the talent for it."

"Yes," said Curufin quickly, "and she has trained in other dances. It's been an art form she's worked on all her life."

"I can tell," the teacher said, "Have you ever thought of taking up dance as a profession?"

"She is a professional dancer," Curufin said.

"Oh?" the teacher said with nod, "What are some places that you have danced at?"

Luthien looked puzzled. "I usually dance in the forest."

"Oh," the teacher said. She stared at Luthien for a long time before turning back to the lesson.

I was relieved when the lesson ended, and we shuffled off to English.


	8. Chapter 8

When we were leaving Spanish, I happened to bump into my acting teacher, Arthur Frisk. He smiled broadly at me.

"What you did in rehearsals was fantastic," he said, "Both you and your sister put so much effort into your work. And, and I could hear you in the back row! Now what I want is for you to do for your performance is to put ten times as much of yourself into it."

As soon as the words left his mouth, I was doomed. His compliments had only served to make me anxious. Ten times as much of myself? How could I do that? I worried about it all through English, worried so much in fact that I hardly noticed all the looks Luthien was getting, hardly. No one seemed to be playing subtle that day. I shuffled into the cafeteria, Elves in tow, feeling rather sick. Acting class was next. I ate and then ran down to the Science building where we were going to perform our monologues. I had chosen one about a girl who felt everything was closing in on her, Clare's monologue from the Fugitive. I thought I could understand that, but now I shook in my seat. Never over-compliment me. Never ask for more. I'm a perfectionist. I can't take failure. I entered the small auditorium and took a middle seat.

Arthur Frisk smiled at me, and I gulped, looking down at the script I had memorized. The words seemed to blur. Caranthir and Curufin were looking smug, filled with Noldorin confidence. All I had was trembling legs and a bit of Finnish sisu (determination).

One by one, the students went up with their monologues, while Frisk watched them and took notes on his bent clipboard. My clasping palms were sweating. I tried to focus like I'd been taught. Tried to come up with a good "as if", a good motive, a special person I was talking to.

Caranthir got up before me and sailed through some Shakespeare monologue. I was too nervous to pay clearly pay attention to it. I think it was from Macbeth, something about the ocean coming in and cleaning his bloodied hand. His performance completely enraptured the crowd. Caranthir's dark, deep voice rolled out like the sea.

Then I had to go up, legs still shaking, probably more nervous than I would be if I were sent out to die. I started to act but my head swam in. I was falling into a canyon, and I couldn't stop myself. The words of the scripts hung useless in the air. They meant nothing to me. Everything was blank. I was saying the words, saying the words in order, out loud, but they meant nothing. I had thought I was talking to a dog, the last creature that could understand me, but now I realized how neglectful a dog could be. The ceiling was high over my head, and I felt like I was falling, though I was standing still. Word by word, I made my way through it feeling faint. Yet, on I went. Finally, the torture ended. The words of the monologue had all been said. And Frisk was sitting there in his old grey, fold out chair looking puzzled.

"You did a lot better practice," he said, "I don't know why but you seemed to have lost it out there."

He shook his head.

"I'll grade you for what you did in practice," he said finally. With a strained nod, I took my seat.

"What were you doing out there?" Curufin smirked. "Trying to faint?"

I bit my lip and ignored him, kicking the back of my theater seat.

Curufin went up next. His monologue was from Crime and Punishment.

"Well, so be it," he cried out in his clear, sweet voice, "I am a pig, but she is a lady! I have the semblance of a beast, but Katerina Ivanovna, my spouse is a person of education and an officer's daughter. Granted, granted, I am a scoundrel, but she is a woman of a noble heart, full of sentiments, refined by education. And yet … oh, if only she felt for me!"

His performance brought all those around him to shuddering tears, his voice ached, and even Frisk's eyes were damp as it ended.

"I have never seen," he began and then had to halt to choke down a cough or a sniffle, "I have never seen anyone perform like that. Ever. You must be thinking of becoming an actor."

"No, sir," Curufin said and quietly retook his seat.

I sighed deeply within myself, supposing I should be happy. After all, no one could do better than the two handsome actors who sat on either side of me, but I still felt guilty about panicking like that. I resolved to ask for a second chance, as soon as the class was finished. One by one the other students went up. One with a monologue from Mean Girls, another from Charlie Brown.

When everyone had gone up, and the students were piling out, I approached Arthur Frisk.

"Um…excuse me?"

"Yes?" he whirling around, his face a comic mask.

"May I try doing it over?"

"By all means," he said, "Now…what was your 'as if'?"

I thought hard. "I can't remember."

"Well, then it wasn't strong enough."

I nodded my agreement but said nothing.

"And who were you talking to?"

"A dog."

"A dog?"

"Yes, I was thinking that no one was listening to her, so she was talking to a dog as her last resort."

"But dogs are not very responsive," he said.

I just nodded. As far as I knew, the girl had gotten no response. It was a monologue.

"I'll come up with an "as if" for you," Frisk was now saying.

Curufin was leaving. Celegorm was pulling Luthien down the hallway, only Caranthir waited, leaning against the doorframe, frowning.

"I know!" said Frisk, "I want you to say the words like you were saying them to your boss, trying to keep your job."

"All right," I said. Though I doubted that a boss would keep a worker after hearing such a speech. After taking a few steady breaths and bending my mind to concentration, I began.

"My nerves have gone funny lately. It's being always on one's guard, and stuffy air, and feeling people look and talk about you, and dislike you being there. I curl up all the time…"

The monologue ran on as I concentrated. The words came out better. They had meaning now. I felt Caranthir's presence in the doorway, and the letters rolled of my tongue.

'Don't think me worse than I am-please! It's working _under_ people; it's _having_ to do it, being driven. I _have_ tried, I've not been altogether a coward, really!"

Those words were almost for him, and then again I steadied myself, trying to keep that imaginary job.

"But every morning getting there the same time; every day the same stale "dinner," as they call it; every evening the same "Good evening, Miss Clare," "Good evening, Miss Simpson," "Good evening, Miss Hart," "Good evening, Miss Clare." And the same walk home, or the same bus; and the same men that you mustn't look at, for fear they'll follow you. Oh! and the feeling-always, always-that there's no sun, or life, or hope, or anything. It was just like being ill, the way I've wanted to ride and dance and get out into the country. Don't think too badly of me-it really is pretty ghastly!'

I ended, and Frisk clapped, a wide smile spreading across his face. He bounced on his heels.

"That was perfect!" he said patting my shoulder, "You have the determination to take on acting. Most of the kids…not you," he said lending Caranthir a smile, "but most of the kids I get, they just don't put effort into what they are doing."

For a while, he rambled on about that and then he suddenly stopped.

"Where's Chantal?" he asked.

"She went to Finland," I said. He had a rather poor memory sometimes.

"Oh, yes," he said, "That's right. She already did her monologue before she left. Finland, eh? You know I am part Swedish."

I nodded. He had told me before.

"It's always wonderful to be able to go abroad, see the world," he looked dreamy, "It gives you a whole new perspective on things. Why didn't you go?"

"I am going to go," I said, "Just later. I still have a May term to do."

"Oh, I see." We walked out of the classroom together, Frisk, Caranthir, and I, while Frisk talked rapidly about his old acting school days and how he had studied under "that guy who plays the captain in Star Trek: Next Generation—what's his name?" and all that he had learned through his life. How he had once got his head forced into a toilet by a director, things like that. He was in a good mood.

I felt quite happy myself, happy that I had the courage to go back and ask to do it over, happy that it gone well, happy that he was happy, happy that it was a warm, spring day, just generally happy.


	9. Chapter 9

**AN: I would like to thank all of my reviewers, and give special thanks to Sauron Gorthaur who has helped me in my quest to find direction for this story**

**-****Galad Estel**

At that week's end, I had come down sick, and not just a normal cold sick. I was coughing so hard I couldn't breath. The coughing went down past my throat and made my chest ache, while my head felt like it was being perpetually assaulted by a battering ram. At the same time, my nose and esophagus were both congested, and I could barely speak. I swung between burning and freezing.

Curufin found these descriptions fascinating. He had known few mortals personally and was very interested in my input on my condition.

"How do you feel?" he would ask quite often, more out of curiosity than concern.

"Awful," I said, "Like I'm going to die."

And I did rather. It fluctuated between that and feeling that the sickness would keep going on and on forever. I just could not imagine getting over it. On top of being weak and in pain, I was depressed and lonely. Chantal had gone away to another country, and I had no one who I could really talk to.

There was one good thing about becoming sick. Caranthir was beginning to seriously doubt I was a sorceress. He paced my bed every morning to try to see if I was really ill or just acting. By the fourth day, he had decided I was not clever enough to keep up such a ruse. Still, he would come to my bedroom, and check up on me, sometimes trying to heal me with his hands. One particularly grey morning, I awoke to find him sitting on my bed, looking down at me through his tangled locks of dark brown hair.

"Don't you know anything?" he asked.

"About…what?"

"On how we got here. You have the map of Beleriand on the wall. You seemed to know us in a way, even before we met."

I pushed myself up into a half sitting position, but my head ached so much I was forced to lie down again.

"You were just characters then," I whispered. I had nearly lost my voice. "Just characters in a book."

"A book?" he replied, bending closer, "Like the ones we take to school?"

"Yes, like that. You weren't supposed to be real."

"And did you like this book?"

"Yes, very much."

"Did you like me?"

I tried to look away, but he would not permit it. He looked me hard in the eyes. "Did you like me very much? Is that why I came here? You wished me to be with you?"

I shook my head. "You were never one of my favorite characters."

"Then you did not wish I was here?"

"No. Never. Maybe…I don't know…if it meant the rest was real, then yes. It was a dream I might have had."

"But why? Our lives are wretched, our deeds are heinous," Caranthir shook his head, "Why would you wish that to be real?"

"Because, because," I croaked. My voice was dying. His grey eyes were burning through me. He asked, and I found myself opening my mind to him, exposing a part of myself I had been trying so long to keep hidden.

My mind was clouded, filled with dark thoughts that had been finding their way in for years. Fear of a father who punished me so often when I was young, anger for it being unfair. Mornings when I dreaded getting up because then I would have to hear my father read aloud books on just how Maccabees martyrs were tortured to death, or how evil women were, or prophecies of the end of the world that would soon be fulfilled (so it made no sense to have dreams for the future).

Loathing of a father who never respected or listened to my mother claiming he was more "experienced" than her, being nearly twenty years older. He never got her a gift either, though she bought him things for Christmas and his birthday. Sometimes, I prayed so hard that they would get divorced, before remembering that God was against that sort of thing.

Then when I was thirteen, my younger brother died, of some rare disease the doctors could not understand. He left a void in our family. He was the one thing that had been holding us together. We had all had to care for him, and when that was gone, we did not know what to do. My parents fought, while my sister and I hid in our room, spinning fantasies, trying to protect ourselves from despair.

I wanted to kill myself, so many times, but I always held on to hope that things would somehow get better. Besides, suicide was pointless and wrong. Two of mother's brothers had taken their lives; I could not put my mother through that again.

During my teen years, my father still ruled with an iron hand, casting his shadow everywhere. He told us what to wear, how to act. No pants, skirts down to the knees, ankles preferably. He never wanted us to have friends or talk to anyone. I withdrew into books.

Then my father had a stroke, and I felt victorious, guilty but victorious. Though he still ruled the house, his strength had lessened. I remember one time after; I read the Kalevala, an epic of Finnish mythology. He told me not to, that he would not abide pagan mythology in his house. I laughed in his face. He said I would go to hell. I did not care. I could not see how hell was worse than the shadow of a life I was living.

Fortunately, there was Chantal. I do not think we would have got through without each other. We thought of running away, but we delayed. We would wait until we could finish high school. We'd go away to college, use our education as way of escape. It seemed a smart idea. We were always noted as being smart. Smart, polite, talented, mature…but eerily quiet. That was what people said about us. We should open up more. I did not know how.

Our schemes were thwarted; we could not pay to go to anywhere but Machias, so that is where we went, commuted to school. I remember pacing the hall outside the university library, up and down, up and down, like a caged panther. It was raining outside. I wanted to be anywhere else but there. I was thinking _one more year under my father's roof, and I'll go insane_. Perhaps, I already was.

Soon after the Elves came, Caranthir, his head against my pillow, strange and hostile, like he was now, bending over me, living my life through my mind. Finally, he withdrew. I squeezed my eyes closed; tears were falling wet against my burning cheeks.

"I think I understand now," he said quietly, "you wanted someone who knew what it was like to walk in the dark."

"I never asked you to come," I whispered.

"No."

"Perhaps, it was mistake," I said, "maybe someone else was meant to get the box."

"Maybe."

"I'm sorry." I ran my fingers over my worn purple and black bed cover. He took my hands in his.

"It's all right," he soothed, "In some ways it's better here. There are no Silmarils."

I lifted my eyes up to meet his. He looked beautiful and broken. His usually smooth, red face was crinkled like used wrapping paper. His breath was heavy.

He moved away from the bed, looking through the books on the shelf, looking for his book, but I had hidden it.

"My father," he said hotly, "never asked my brothers or I, if we wanted to risk our souls for his stones."

I nodded.

"I never wanted to kill anyone," Caranthir said, then shook his head, "No, that is not true, but I did not want to kill them. I had nothing against the seafarers. They were supposed to be our friends, but that's all gone now. Do you know what it is like to want to kill? To be filled with fury, fear, fault?"

I nodded.

"Yes, you have wanted to kill your father."

I said nothing, unable to deny it.

"I've wanted to kill my father hundreds of times," he said fiercely, "Make him feel pain, for what he has made of me, a monster. Manslaughter, murder, I have lived it. It's my past, my future."

Caranthir paused staring, looking down at the books he had thrown to the floor in his search. Volume on volume, spread out against the old Oriental rug. I stared down at them too. We looked up at the same time, met each other's eyes.

"I'm sorry," I said. He smiled sadly and shook his head, picked the books back up and put them on the shelf.

"It's tragic, isn't it?" he said.

I nodded.

"How do I die?" Caranthir was gazing out the window at a car passing by.

"In battle," I replied.

"But how?" His fingernails hit against the glass.

"He never said. You just died."

"And no one mourned for me?"

"Your brothers must have…"

"Why would they? Death is a relief for us. Besides none of them truly liked me. I was the brother without a pair. There was Nelyo and Káno, Turko and Curvo, Telu and Pityo, but Moryo was always by himself. At least you have a sister."

"She's gone now," I said softly. Outside, the rain played on young leaves. I felt sorry for Caranthir, deeply and truly sorry for him. I regretted my words earlier about him never being a favorite character of mine, even if they were honest. Had he ever been anyone's favorite? He was a murderer, but I felt like I could understand him.

"But she'll come back, right?" Caranthir said, turning away from the window. He walked back over to me.

"Yes, yes, she'll come back. She should come back."

"Then you need not grieve so," Caranthir said, "to die of grief for one who is not yet dead, is senseless."

I nodded. His hands cupped my chin.

"Trust me," he said.

"I must," I said, "You know everything about me."

He nodded and began to stroke my cheeks, forehead, neck. The fever lifted, and my headache dwindled, but I was still quite congested.

"Your chest is a bit inflamed," he said, "I wish my power at healing were as strong as it used to be."

"It's amazing what you can do," I said, trying to make him less sad.

"Perhaps among your kind," Caranthir replied, "though it's common among the Eldar, but I can give you rest. Rest is the greatest healer."

With those last words, he started to sing, sad and soft in Quenya. Slowly, I felt the world give way, and I was lost in beautiful dreams of Valinor, memories of something I had never experienced.


	10. Chapter 10

That Friday, we had our introductory class in Rec and Wellness. The day was warm and sunny, unlike the week's other children. Days of rain had made the driveway wet and we navigated through puddles to get to my mother's Ford Focus were on our way. By we, I mean Caranthir, Curufin and myself. Curufin and I were in the back. Caranthir was in the front passenger seat. My mother was driving.

"So," my mother told me as we turned onto Route One, "I heard from Chantal. She's been feeling sick lately. She fainted on the bathroom floor. It's strange, we separate you two, and suddenly you both get ill."

"That certainly is strange," Curufin said, looking out the window. Trees whizzed by outside, trees for a long, long time with only an occasional building to break the monotony. Many people complained about this stretch of road that it seemed to go on and on for hours longer than the miles it held, but I was used to it.

"It's like you have a certain connection," my mother continued, "I really worry about you two. I don't know if you can survive apart. It's almost like you're the same person."

I nodded. Chantal and I were two years apart, but almost everyone thought we were twins. We looked sort of alike: pale skin, long brown hair, and hazel eyes. We both had soft voices. We had the same interests. We did the same things. We even finished each other's sentences.

"Sometimes," she said, "I fear that you don't have enough individuality. I mean what do you want to do with your life…personally? I know Chantal wants to get into film."

I frowned. When I was young, I had wanted to be an author. Then in my early teens, art also looked appealing. My mother had tried to steer Chantal into the study of medicine (genetics in particular) because Chantal did well with math and science, while she had decided that I would make a very good teacher and left it that. Meanwhile, I was not certain whether I wanted to be a teacher at all. The thought of standing in front of a classroom all day and giving the same lesson over and over every year, never really sparked that much interest. And I always knew I wanted to write, but I also sought something more. At fifteen, I had decided I wanted to make movies. Chantal had dropped the idea of genetics (which she had long been questioning) and followed suit.

"_We _want to make an independent movie company," I said quietly.

My mother frowned again. "But you have to think of something else. You can't just make movies. They're expensive."

I nodded. My mother had always been a practical person, while I had day dreamed a good part of my life away. Always my mind was filled with a current of stories that whined to be written.

"I don't know," I said, "I could be an illustrator, a librarian."

I was not feeling particularly motivated that day. Remnants of my bad cold still lingered in my head, though the rest of my body felt all right.

"I thought you already were a librarian," Curufin said.

"I am," I said, "Only they don't pay me. I volunteer."

Curufin nodded and looked bored. He played with the windows, making them go up and down.

"Don't do that," my mother said sternly, looking over her shoulder into the back.

Curufin smirked and begin teasing the window open the tiniest bit before closing it again.

"Stop, Curvo," Caranthir said crossly, "You are acting like a child."

Curufin folded his arms and sulked like a child. "I don't see why you get the front seat."

"Because," Caranthir said, "I am older than you."

"So?" Curufin said.

Caranthir ignored him.

"Let's see if they have any nice music on," my mother said. She reached over and turned on the radio. Gospel music from the Christian station filled the car.

Curufin grimaced. "They sound like dying mice."

My mother frowned deeply and turned the volume down a bit. Finally, when Curufin would not stop dong squeaking imitations of the singers, she turned it off.

Caranthir glared at his brother. "You need not act so unpleasant."

Curufin hissed something back in Quenya, and Caranthir's eyes went wide with fury. I could see the white all around the grey iris. "Pull over!"

My mother looked at him. "Why?"

"Just pull over," Caranthir snapped.

No one argued with an angry Fëanorian. Once the Focus was parked on the side of the road, Caranthir jumped out of the van and rolled open the back seat.

"What are you going to do?" Curufin asked, with a raise of an eyebrow.

"Get out," Caranthir said.

"No," Curufin said flatly, "We'll be late for school."

"I don't care, get out."

"Please don't fight," I whispered. I was on the other side of Curufin away from the door. "If you make a scene, the police might come."

And then we would have some real trouble. I had a hard time imaging either Caranthir or Curufin turning themselves over to the authorities. After all, they had not listened to the

Guardians of the Arda, so why would they listen to the Maine State Police?

"Who are the police?" Caranthir snapped.

Curufin sneered. "The law enforcers of this land, you imbecile."

"Oh, yes, them," Caranthir said, drawing a breath, "Well, we are suppose to remain inconspicuous, so I shall leave you off with a warning, but if you ever murmur something against our hosts again, I shall personally box your ears."

Curufin went red in the face, whether from rage or shame it was hard to tell. He did not look at me for the rest of the trip over.

On arriving, we got of the van. I pulled my periwinkle blue backpack up over my shoulders.

"Dad will pick you up later," my mother called.

"All right," I said, "good-bye."

"Good-bye," my mother said, "I love you."

"I love you too."

Curufin looked from my mother to me then to my mother again. There was an almost wishful look in his eyes. Then he turned away and strode into the building. Caranthir and I followed him to a small classroom, where a few others students were seated, among them two girls who I had met at a Bible meeting at school: Maria and Adaja.

Maria was a smart, somewhat lazy, rather opinionated, but kindhearted girl who loved fairytales. She was a quiet, somewhat peculiar. She had a habit of meowing instead of talking and taking notes on other people's conversations. She was a bit taller than I at five foot, seven and a bit heavier as well. She had brown almond-shaped eyes and long brown hair streaked with pink. When she was four she had moved to America from Russia, so that her mother could live with her stepfather.

Adaja was half Dutch. She had grown up switching between living in America with her mother and the Netherlands with her father. She was a psychology major at the university and had a habit of trying to analyze other people while not reveling very much about herself. An attentive listener with a sweet smile, she was what my mother called a "great communicator". Adaja was also quite attractive with blond hair and blue eyes. She had a baby face with chipmunk cheeks but was very thin otherwise.

We smiled at each other, but then I noticed they were looking very curiously at the Elves.

"Oh," I said suddenly realizing that I should make introductions, "Um, Curvo, Moryo, I would like you to meet Maria and Adaja. And Maria, Adaja, I would like to introduce you to Curvo and Moryo."

A chorus of 'Nice to meet you's' circled the group, and then the teacher walked in. She was a young teacher with short brown hair and a soft, child-like voice. She introduced herself and told a bit about her life and education. She had been born and raised in Canada and had gotten a science degree at the University of Maine at Orono, etc.

After explaining a bit about nutrition, the teacher had us walk over to Torrey to watch a video about kids who spend all their time inside playing video games. Afterwards, we went home. The rest of the course would start next week, and I hardly knew what I was getting into.


	11. Chapter 11

It rained again Saturday night. I lay in my bed listening to the light rain patter the metal roof outside my window. I was not tired, so after a while I got up and gathered up my clothes to dress in the bathroom. I did not want to disturb Lúthien, who was sleeping across from me on my sister's bed.

"You cannot sleep either?" Lúthien said suddenly from the darkness.

"No," I said.

"They are fighting again," Lúthien said. I could hear the soft rustle of blankets as she sat up. "Can you hear them?"

I listened. Faintly, I heard two voices coming through the vent, but could make out what they were saying.

"What are they fighting about?" I asked.

"Curufin is angry," Lúthien whispered, "Caranthir told him that he searched your mind and that you knew nothing about how we came here. Curufin now thinks it's a waste to stay. He wants to move on, to explore this new world. He thinks that he has learnt enough about it to get by."

"Oh," I said, "And what does Caranthir think?"

"He thinks that we must stay here, near to where we came. Maybe there is some way back home."

"What do you think?" I asked.

"I don't know."

Lúthien turned the light switch on. Startled, I jumped back squinting. I had not heard her cross the floor. She laughed. She was already dressed. She was wearing a brown cardigan and black skirt she had bought at Goodwill.

I grabbed my plastic drinking cup and went into the bathroom. There I dressed into a shirt, sweater, and denim skirt. Also, I brushed my teeth for the third time that night. Living with Elves can make you very hygienic.

Lúthien was waiting for me in the hallway when I got out. She was braiding her hair.

"I want to see the library," she said. She put a scrunchie at the end of her braid and stood up straight.

"What?" I said in surprise.

"I want to see the library where you got the box from."

"At this hour?"

"Why not?" she said.

"I can't get out without being noticed," I whispered. Lúthien nodded towards the window.

"But the keys for the car are downstairs," I protested.

She smiled and pulled a key chain out from behind her back. Then bent and pulled two sets of shoes from under my bed.

"You had this planned," I said with a shake of my head, "But how are we going to get there?"

"You know how to drive," Lúthien said.

"I haven't got a license, only a permit. I would need someone else to come with me."

"I'm someone else," Lúthien persisted.

"Someone with a license."

"Wouldn't it be fun to break a few rules?" She gave me one of her most appealing smiles. Her voice was spellbinding, pleasing and pleading.

I opened my pocketbook, took out my permit. "All right."

Sitting on my bed, she opened the window. A cool breeze swept in. With delicate grace, she stepped out onto the flat, metal roof that was over our living room. I felt my heartbeat accelerate as I followed her out. The roof was slippery under my sneakers. Lúthien disappeared down the ladder. Half crawling, I crept after her. The rain fell faster, and I was afraid I might fall, but I made it to the ladder.

When I reached the bottom, Lúthien was touching the walls and muttering something. She continued to this while walking around the house. I felt the hairs on my neck start to stand up; a shiver ran through my chest. Finally, she turned to me.

"Now," she said, "They cannot hear anything outside."

Together we went to the front yard. I opened the garage door, and she unlocked the van, then handed me the keys. Her grey eyes were bright with excitement. Not that they were not normally bright, actually they had a scary tendency of glowing in the dark.

I climbed into the driver's seat. Lúthien took the front passenger's seat and slammed her door shut. I closed my door more quietly, still nervous. She played with the seat belt. Even in the dark, I could see her smile. I turned the car on. The radio blared and startled us both. Lúthien quickly turned it off.

"Well, are you going to start?" she asked buckling herself in. I nodded.

Slowly, I backed the van up. This must be in a dream, I thought. I had often dreamt of driving without a license, of getting caught. Then I would wake up and it would be all over, but somehow I knew this was not a dream. I turned onto the road, straightened the van out, and drove on. The houses were dark now. I felt for the library key in the pocket of my sweater. I was supposed to turn it in earlier, because I had left off working in the library, at least for that semester. First there was the class, and then I was supposed to go to Finland. I had lied to the head librarian though. I had said that I had lost the key. At the time, I did not know why. True, I had gotten the box from there, but since then I had seen no sign of anything unusual happening at the library. For all I knew, the old man who brought the box was dead. His pursuers must have killed him, or captured him, or perhaps he did not actually care.

"I have a feeling about tonight," Lúthien said.

I nodded and gripped the steering wheel hard. "I've never driven in the dark."

"You're doing fine," Lúthien said, "Just stay in the lines."

I nodded again, concentrated on the road. Everything was black, except the shimmering yellow and white lines on either side of the van.

"Celegorm isn't a bad man," Lúthien said suddenly.

"Oh?"

"He's misguided, foolish, and fiery," Lúthien continued quickly, "He has impulses like all men, but he has a heart. I've learned a lot about him these last few months. We actually have more in common than I first thought."

"Such as?" I said turning off Marshville and onto Route One. I was seriously worrying about Lúthien.

"Well," Lúthien said, "Celegorm and I both have very charismatic, royal, jewel loving, highly controlling fathers."

By now, I was suspecting Stockholm Syndrome.

"Also," Lúthien added, "Celegorm and I both like dogs. Huan is a real dear, as is your Laurel. Though I am afraid they may be overly fond of each other."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well," Lúthien said with a shake of head, "Time will tell."

I felt my foot push nervously at the break as we went down a hill into the town part of Harrington. "You mean you think Laurel is going to have puppies?"

"Perhaps."

My mind was racing. Huan was a fictional hound; he could not impregnate my dog. That would just be awkward.

"But," I said, "He's the hound of the Valar…"

"Even the hound of the Valar can get bored after being cooped inside for months. It was driving _me_ mad."

By then we were nearing the library. I pulled into a side road and then into the parking lot at the library's back.

"But I'll never marry him," Lúthien whispered, so soft I could hardly make it out.

"Who?"

"Celegorm."

"Okay." I turned the engine off and took the key out of the ignition. "We're here."

Lúthien smiled again. She stepped out of the van and onto the gravel. Her face shone in the library's spotlight. She closed her door with a certain finality.

We walked to the library's door together. I unlocked it, and she ran in. In the glow of the Exit sign, I saw them embrace. Her head pressed tenderly against his breast. He kissed her dark hair.

"I thought I would never see you again," he whispered.

"As did I," Lúthien whispered into his red plaid shirt. I shifted uncomfortably; my back was against the door.

"Oh, Lúthien, my dear Tinúviel."

"Beren," she whispered, "Beren."

She looked up, and their lips pressed together. For a while, the heated sound of kissing stole through the library. I wondered if the building had ever heard it before.

"How did you ever come to be here?" Lúthien asked.

"Well, I was given to a librarian, but when I woke she threw a fit. Apparently, she thought she was losing her head. I obliged her sanity by leaving. Since then I have been searching for you, my love. It's a strange world we've tumbled into."

"Yes" Lúthien said, "but at least, now we are together."

They kissed again. I wondered if I should just slip out. The computers hummed faintly, while the bookshelves loomed. I could go to the van, drive away. Maybe, the sons of Feänor had already found out I was missing. Maybe they had found out Lúthien was missing and would come look for her.

"Who's she?" Beren asked. He was gesturing towards me.

"This is my friend, Elina," Lúthien said, "She helped me to escape. We were held prisoner two months by the sons of Feänor."

Beren took my hand. "We owe you many thanks." He kissed it.

I blushed. "I didn't really know what I was doing."

"You are very brave," Beren said graciously.

I did not feel brave. In fact, a sense of dread was taking over me. Lúthien would not come back with me. I knew that much. What was I to tell the others?

"What are we going to do now?" Lúthien asked Beren.

"We shall go somewhere else," Beren said, "We shall search the world for others such as ourselves."

Lúthien nodded. "Yes, that is what we shall do, and we shall search for a way back to our own world."

"But," said Beren, "This world is better in some ways. There is no dark lord."

"It is not our world," Lúthien said gently, "Or at least not our time."

"No, I suppose it is not." Beren looked with longing eyes at the computers. "Yet, there is so much we could learn."

"It is not for us to know."

"Then why were we placed here?"

Lúthien looked thoughtful. "A mistake perhaps…or work of some enemy. How shall we go?"

"I have a car," Beren said.

"How did you get in here?" I asked, suddenly curious.

"I came in Friday," Beren said, "I managed to get down to the basement, while the librarian was in the washroom. There I stayed hidden."

"But how did you trace me?" Lúthien asked.

"I was at the university a week ago," Beren said, "and thought I caught sight of you, though you looked changed."

"I was disguised to look human."

"Yes," Beren cooed, "but all the same I knew it was you. After that, I followed your car and was planning on rescuing you, when you spoiled my plans by freeing yourself."

She smiled at him, her eyes filled with love. Again, they embraced. Her arms wrapping around his waist; his round her neck. I felt empty, as if a vacuum had sucked my insides out. I did not know that emotion. That heart-flushing infatuation (true love as some chose to call it) was foreign to me. And out of the emptiness came anger, a burning jealousy at their happiness, but I did not show it. I did not allow myself to act on it. I just looked away.

"We should go," Beren said finally. Lúthien nodded against his shoulder. The clock on the wall ticked on. It read eleven, thirty-six.

"Yes," Lúthien said.

"Do you bring anything with you?" Beren asked.

"Only the clothes on my back."

"Well," Beren said, "We'll get by. I can get work somewhere. I'm strong."

Lúthien smiled up at him. "Of course, you are, dear."

"If you'll wait a minute here," Beren said, "I'll go get my car. I parked it somewhere else."

"How did you get a driver's license?" Lúthien asked.

"Do you need a license?" Beren asked, "I did not know that. I thought it was like with a horse. If you can drive it, you may."

"Well," Lúthien said, "We'll think of something. Go fetch the car."

I wondered how we would get through the night without coming face to face with the police. After Beren left, Lúthien turned to me.

"I have a letter here," she said, "It's for Celegorm. It says that I have no hard feelings, though it also conveys that he should not try to follow me."

She handed me a closed envelope. I took it.

"Stay strong," Lúthien said gently. She touched my shoulder. "I'll try to write soon."

It seemed a false promise, but I nodded. "Good-bye."

"Farewell," she said. Then she was gone, leaving me alone in the dark library. I walked out and was about to the lock the door, when I thought about giving the building a final check. I walked in, turned on the lights. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. I did not care if the police caught me.

After aimlessly searching, I finally spotted a note that had fallen off the librarian's desk. I picked it up. It was a piece of notebook paper covered in runes. I stuck in my pocket. Then I drove home.

At twelve, twenty-three, I slid into bed. About a half an hour later, I was fast asleep.


	12. Chapter 12

It was late when I woke up the next morning. The sun was streaming through the blinds. I sat up and look around. As I was alone, I opened my pocket book and pulled out the rune paper. I looked at it but was not able to make much of it. I saw the familiar Elven rune for G, so I guessed that the language must be Elvish, something I had already suspected. What it said I did not know nor did I feel under present circumstances it would be wise to ask the Elves. I decided to hide the paper and look up the runes online later. The cleverest way to hide something is to hide it in plain sight…or at least Sherlock Holmes thought so. I tucked the rune paper into _The Classical Illustrated Sherlock Holmes_. If anything went wrong, I'd blame him. Maybe he was even out there. Who knew?

I meandered through my morning routine, all the while trying to think of a way to react to Luthien's disappearance. Claiming ignorance seemed my most viable option. After all both Caranthir and Celegorm had hot tempers, and Curufin was fairly sadistic. I looked at the unopened letter Luthien had given me. I rubbed it with a towel but was uncertain whether all my fingerprints had been removed. After dropping the letter on the floor, I headed down the stairs.

Laurel was lying in the hall downstairs. One foot folded over the other, she had the expression of a grave duchess. She lifted her head up and looked at me with solemn brown eyes, flicked her tail once then went back to delicately licking her paws. I frowned.

"Have you been doing anything lately?" I asked.

She gazed up curiously at me, her head cocked to one side.

"Anything you shouldn't?"

She 'hoofed', stood up, and shook herself. She gave me a quick, hurt look before pushing the kitchen door open and going inside.

Through the opened door, I could see Caranthir and Celegorm were working on a roast. (Every since they had arrived, they had insisted it was a man's job to cook. Women made bread. This did not always work with my mother, but I am sure at times she was grateful. The Elves were wonderful cooks.)

Calmly as I could, I walked in. "Good morning." I smiled at my mother who was reading another medical book.

"Good afternoon," my mother corrected.

It was two past twelve. I nodded then walked over to the cupboard and got out a box of crackers. After putting the box on the table, I scrounged for cheese in the fridge and emerged with a chunk of sharp cheddar.

"Is Luthien _still_ asleep?" Celegorm asked in exasperation.

I shook my head. "I thought she would be down here."

"Maybe she went for a walk," Caranthir said. He looked out the window at the pine trees in the back.

I bit into a cracker and cheese sandwich to avoid talking.

"I had something to tell her," Celegorm said wistfully.

"You always have something to tell her," Curufin said. He had walked in from the living room. "All talk, no action. If you do not start getting down to business, I shall have to take over in the marriage department."

"We cannot force her," Celegorm protested. "We must reason with her, persuade her..."

"But that could take centuries!" Curufin fell back dramatically onto to the loveseat that stood in the corner of the kitchen.

Caranthir looked up from peeling potatoes. "I thought you said _you_ were the patient one, Curvo."

"Patience can only stretch so far," Curufin seethed. "Besides, you must understand the politics of this scheme. A union with Luthien would be a union with Doriath. Our kingdoms would be brought back together—"

"By force," Caranthir said.

"Yes, by force, but if peace is the end, then force need not be amended."

Caranthir scowled. "Don't try to be witty. Your logic is frayed."

"But the girl is not cooperating." Curufin flung himself up off the loveseat and paced the floor. "I've tried flattery, bribery, reason! Nothing seems to work on her. She's too thick. All she wants to do is marry some straggly outlaw who is going to die in a few years! She's a fool, a stubborn fool."

"Yes," said Celegorm. "In that way, she is foolish. Why would she put herself through such pain, such misery? To marry a man who can only live for a drop in the rain of our lives? I would love eternally—"

"Maybe she's a masochist," Curufin interrupted irritably. "Whatever the reason, she's being selfish. We are trying to unite our two peoples."

"You're trying to gain power," Caranthir said. He was chopping the potatoes now. His knife was clipping hard on the wooden cutting board.

"Yes," Curufin said. "That is, of course, part of it, but I do not think I am the only one who wants peace between the Sindarin and the Noldor. My brother is selfless enough to subject himself to a union with one of Moriquendi. The Dark Elf and his erratic daughter should be—"

"She's not erratic," Celegorm said. "She's glorious, like an afternoon of late spring when the fruit trees are thick with blossoms—"

"She's not here," Curufin said, "So please be quiet."

Celegorm sighed and plunked the roast into a pan.

I continued eating crackers. Laurel was sitting by my side. A piece of cracker splintered off as I bit into it. Laurel looked wildly around. She had not seen the place where it fell.

"It's by your feet, love," I said softly. She looked down at her feet and quickly licked up the crumbs.

"Where is she then?" Caranthir asked. He was at the spice cupboard, pulling out containers of sage and thyme.

"We still do not know," Curufin said. He stopped pacing and gave me a fixed look.

I stuffed the cheese into its bag, put it and the crackers away.

"You don't happen to know when she came down?" he asked.

I shook my head. "I didn't hear her. I must have been sleeping."

Curufin frowned. "Maybe, she's still up there."

I shrugged.

His gaze intensified. "You didn't hear her?"

"I'm a deep sleeper," I said, not averting my eyes. "I can sleep through almost anything."

That part was true, perfectly true.

"Well, I'll go see." Curufin turned quickly, pushed through the kitchen door, and darted up the stairs.

I looked around. Celegorm was dressing the roast. Caranthir was dropping oil on the vegetables, lost in thought. My mother was still reading her medical book, though she was looking uneasy.

Huan loped in, a wolfish grin on his long face. I glared at him. He looked confused. Laurel went over and sniffed him. I stood up.

"I'm going to take—"

But my words were cut off.

"She's gone!" Curufin's voice came screaming down the stairs.

Celegorm dropping his basting brush.

"What do you mean?" he cried.

Curufin's hand was a black shadow in the light of the doorway. He was holding the opened letter in front of him.

Celegorm snatched it up, read the words and moaned.

"You're little bird has flown away," Curufin said.

Celegorm nodded, sinking to his knees.

Curufin marched forward and pushed up his brother's chin. "We'll find her."

"What if she is already dead?" Celegorm said. "It's a mad world out there, a mad, mad, world. Bombs, hurricanes, kidnappers, drive by shootings…"

"That's why we must go after her quickly," Curufin said. "And bring her back to safety."

He pulled his brother to his feet.

"Yes, yes," Celegorm muttered. "Of course, we must."

"She can't get far on foot," Curufin said. "We'll take the van. Go looking for her."

Celegorm nodded numbly. "I…she said…she said she did not love…that it was useless…I…"

"She has said that all before," Curufin snapped. "That's not important. We're doing this for her own good."

His dark eyes quivered with loathing.

Laurel skirted the room, running from person to person, whining anxiously and giving paw. She hated fights. I petted her head, told her it would be all right.

Huan was by Celegorm's side, nuzzling his hand, tail wagging tentatively. Curufin was pacing again. My father had taken the van to go the recycling center, so they had to wait for him to get back. The kitchen was thick with tension. I stood leaning against the counter, still stroking Laurel's head. She seemed to have calmed down some, though she was still worried.

"Are you sure you have no thought to where she might have gone?" Celegorm asked me. His voice was so sad and anxious, it almost made me feel sorry for him, but I was not about to betray Luthien. She had finally gained her freedom. If I said nothing, I could share in it, if only in a small way. She was gone though. I felt empty.

"You know her better than I do," I said.

"You are evading his question," Curufin said. "You are not telling us the full truth."

"Perhaps Luthien placed an enchantment on her," Caranthir said. "So, she cannot speak."

"Did she?" Curufin looked hard at me. Elven eyes are like lances when they are angry, so bright, and I have always been light sensitive. I looked away.

"I don't know." I said. "I don't know where she is. I honestly don't know."

There was still suspicion in Curufin's eyes, but Caranthir and Celegorm seemed to take that as my final answer and looked away. They finished preparing the roast, and it went in the oven. Our van screeched its way into our driveway. The Elves ran out. I remained in the kitchen with my mother.

She raised her eyebrows at me.

"I don't think it's safe to talk about it right now," I said, returning her unasked question.


	13. Chapter 13

The rest of Sunday and all of Monday, the Fëanorians unsuccessfully searched the countryside for Lúthien. On Monday, I went to rec and wellness class. The Fëanorians dropped me off before going on to scour the Machias area.

On Tuesday, Caranthir came along with me to class. He had become angry and tired of his brothers and had decided a walk would be a good idea, and it just so happened our class was hiking that day.

Caranthir walked ahead of us, grumpy and stormy eyed, but when he got far enough he would double back and find me. I walked behind our school group with Maria and Adaja.

On the trails, Adaja was in her element, a wide smile amid rosy cheeks. I walked with a steady thread, my backpack (filled with lunch, extra clothes, and water bottles) heavy on my shoulders. Maria plodded along looking with wary eyes at the mud that took over the path in places.

"I hate nature," Maria said.

"You don't hate nature," Adaja said.

"Yes, I do."

"What about the trees?" I said. "Aren't they pretty?"

I pointed to the thin, grey arms of twisting trees and their quivering green leaves.

"I hate trees," Maria said.

"How could you hate trees?" Caranthir said, who was with us for the moment.

"They remind me of loneliness," Maria said.

"Why?" I said.

She shrugged. "All my life, I've been surrounded by trees out in the middle of nowhere. Alone, without friends."

"You've got friends now," Adaja said, touching her shoulder.

Maria smiled and punched her arm playfully.

"Do you still hate trees?" Adaja said.

"Yes," Maria said, looking suspiciously at a thick root that stretched across the path. "And nature."

"So the whole environmental spirit of the university hasn't rubbed off on you?"

"No," Maria said.

"Is there any part of nature you do like?" I said.

"I like rocks and water," Maria said. "The rest is meh."

By this time, we had made it to the rocky beach, where we stopped for lunch. I sat down on a rock and opened my backpack, got out a juice pouch, an apple, and a ham and cheese sandwich. The three of us ate in relative silence, while Caranthir prowled the beach.

Some of the students had gone out further on the rocks, so they were closer to the ocean. I could hear them shouting about a whale. I felt torn between staying with Maria and Adaja and going out to look. Finally, my curiosity got the better of me. Between jumping and clambering, I made it near the sea. There was not only a whale in the water but a young harbor seal on the beach, staring and waving its flipper at us. For a while, I stared at it enthralled. It was grey and mottled with dark, bright eyes and long whiskers. It acted like a puppy, barking and showing off and looking at us with curiosity. There was no fear or anger. Though as our teacher instructed, we kept our distance.

I ran and jumped back to Maria and Adaja.

"There's a seal!" I said.

"What?" Adaja said. She was packing her trash back into her bag.

"There is a seal out on the beach," I said, "You have to see!"

They followed after me. Maria needed help to get over some of the unstable, rocking rocks but we made it. The girls oohed and awed at the seal, while I got out my notebook to sketch him. Then something strange happened.

Caranthir stepped over to the seal and sat down beside it. He spoke low and soft and probably in Quenya. I tried to make out words but failed entirely. The wind was strong. Caranthir ran his fingers over the seal's head, stroked its neck and flank. The seal moved closer to him, rubbing his head against Caranthir's chest, rippling his red shirt.

The teacher, who had been calling at him to stop, looked now with anxiety and amazement as the seal sniffed and nudged Caranthir's face. Caranthir laughed and talked to it, like one might talk to a child.

I felt my heart move inside me. Caranthir turned and saw me. He beckoned to me with his hand. I shook my head. He frowned, and I wavered. Other bolder students were already flooding over, and Caranthir had them come one at a time and then go back, as not to overwhelm the poor seal. Caranthir spoke with a voice of authority and the students listened.

I finally got up the courage to go over. Caranthir had me sit on the rock beside him and directed my hand to the back of the seal as he whispered words of assurance to it. The seal's hide was leathery, slimy, wet. Its head brushed my hand; its whiskers tickled my palm. I looked up at Caranthir and smiled. I would always remember that day.

* * *

><p>For half the week, I walked and cleaned beaches for class. The roll of the sea was the music in the background of those short days. I remember being hot and cold and uncertain. I sat with Maria and Adaja in the back of the school van on the way to places. We talked or tried to or sat silent.<p>

The sons of Fëanor were still out searching but with no results. However, on my Wednesday lunch break, I checked my school email in the library to find a message from Lúthien.

Hi, Elina! I looked up how to write an email, and this is how they said to, so I hope it's right. Beren and I are in England! And you won't believe it. We found others of ourselves! I just met up with Mablung today. He says he's been drifting alone for weeks, poor thing. Anyway, I hope I didn't cause you too much trouble. Are the Fëanorians looking for me?

Beren and I are trying to find out how we came here, and how to get back to our time. Going to the future has been really insightful, but we're afraid that we might mess up the time continuum if we stay. We've reading up on time travel and parallel universes. It's really interesting. Anyway, if you can get some time alone write back.

– Luthien.

I wrote her email address down on a piece of paper then deleted the email. I made a new gmail account, one I determined to never check at home, and from this account I wrote back to her.

Hi, Luthien. I'm glad you're safe, and you found a friend. Don't write to my school email. I think Curufin checks it. The Fëanorians are searching for you. You can write to this account. Be careful. If your friends are out there, your foes might be too. I'm fine. – Elina

I sent it then made sure to log off the account and turn off the university's computer.

Our class spent that afternoon in the gym. First we did stretches, runs, and jumps, and then after a ten-minute break, we had a Zumba session. It sorted of reminded of something I had done at home growing up, dancing and jumping to music. I was rather surprised that people had named it and made it into an exercise routine, but I was grateful.

That day ended almost an hour early. Maria, Adaja, and I left the gym together.

"That was fun," Adaja said.

I nodded, but Maria shook her head. I was a bit out of breath, but Maria was heaving. We waited worriedly for her to stop gasping, then Adaja handed her a water bottle. Maria gulped from it greedily.

"I am tired though," Adaja said. "And hungry."

Maria and I both agreed this time.

"We've got some old pizzas we have to finish," Adaja said turning to me. "Would you like to help?"

I hesitated. In truth, I was not allowed in the dorms. However, I had never really told Maria or Adaja this. It was one of the many strict rules my father laid on me that I didn't really like talking about. Before I had made excuses about not going, or a couple of times before I had gone and just not told my parents.

I guessed I would risk it again. "Okay."

So, we crossed campus to the dorm buildings. Once in the dorm, Maria and I went to the student lounge, while Adaja went up to their dorm to get the pizzas. A while later, we were all chatting and laughing over reheated pizza. It had been a long time since I had had any friends. It was a good feeling but not long lasting. Glancing up, I saw that it was five minutes before five. I jumped up.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I have to go. My mom should be coming."

"Oh, okay," Adaja said.

"Thanks for the pizza," I said, throwing out my paper plate and throwing on my purple spring jacket.

"No problem," Adaja said.

I left the building in a hurry and ran across campus. My mother was waiting outside the library in the Focus.

"You were coming from the dorms," she said, as I climbed in.

I was silent. I was tired of lying to people. The Focus pulled out from the curve.

"You know your father doesn't want you in the dorms," my mother continued.

I looked out at the window, watched the brick buildings go by.

"Well?" she said.

"How am I supposed to make friends or live," I said. "If I can't go anywhere or do anything?"

"You go to the school," my mother said. "You see your friends in class, at Bible study."

"That's not enough," I said. "That's not how you make friends. That's how you make acquaintances."

"That doesn't change the fact that your father will be upset about the dorms."

"He doesn't have to know," I said, staring her in the eyes.

My mother frowned and looked back at the road. She drove the rest of the way home in silence.


	14. Chapter 14

Once I got home, I brought my backpack upstairs. I dropped it on the floor and sunk down onto my bed. I closed my eyes. I thought about all the papers that were due at the end of the week. I had been putting them off because I was usually exhausted by the evening. Now I just felt agitated. I took out the journal and scribbled some notes about the day: the nature walk, Zumba, how it made me feel, etc. The types of things teachers want when they demand to know your heart.

A half an hour later, my mother called me down for dinner. On the stairwell, I noticed tension in the air, and the Fëanorians weren't even back yet. I walked into the kitchen.

"Close the door behind you," my father snapped. "We don't live in a barn."

I closed it. My father didn't say anything else, but his eyes remained fixed on me, which wasn't a good sign.

"Would you grate some cheese?" my mother asked. "We're having burritos."

"Okay." I got the grater out from its low cupboard and started shredding cheddar cheese.

My mother was dicing a tomato and making sure the refried beans didn't burn.

"Is this enough cheese?" I asked, showing her a board heaping with shredded cheese.

"Looks good."

I put the cheese in a bowl and placed it on the table. Then I set the table with placemats and plates. My mother gave my father and brother burritos, and we made ours. I had just bitten into my burrito when my father began to speak.

"Your mother told me about the dorms," he said.

I looked up, brushing sour cream from my bottom lip with my napkin. I said nothing.

"You know what I said," my father said. "I don't want you in those dorms. If you want to see your friends you can see them somewhere else. Dorms are dangerous. People can have drugs there, alcohol."

"Do you think I'd be stupid enough to take them?" I asked.

"I don't know," my father said. "I don't know what your friends are like."

"I met them at a Bible group," I said. "And you've met Maria."

"That's not the point," my father growled. "I told you not to go to the dorms, and I expect you to obey."

"I'm an adult," I said. "I—"

"So? You still live under my roof, don't you? As long as you live here, you have to follow my rules. If you move out and get a job, fine. Then you make your own rules, but as long as you live here, you're going to follow mine. Am I clear?"

His brown eyes were sizzling in his head. My cheeks were red with resentment. He knew very well that I couldn't just go out and get a job. The economy was bad, and there hadn't been much work round here to begin with. Besides, apartments in the University town were expensive. I could see clearly that there was no sense arguing with him though, so I ate and glared.

"If you go to the dorms again," my father warned. "If you do any more foolishness, I'll throw you out of the house."

I said nothing. He had never said he would throw me out of the house before. He had threatened to never let me out of it before but never the other way around.

"You don't think I will, do you?"

Again, I said nothing. I was too angry to trust myself to speak.

"Well, I don't make empty threats," my father said.

I wanted to kill him. Every time I bit into my burrito, I imagined engulfing and biting off his head. Striving to control my temper, I finished dinner and got up. I had to leave before I did something drastic. It took all my strength not to break my plate over his head as I reached behind him to throw my napkin in the trash. I rinsed my plate and placed it in the dishwasher. I closed the dishwasher. It fell open, but I did not return to shut it.

I ran out of the room, slamming the kitchen door behind me, and rushed up the steep stairs to the second story. I walked towards the bathroom to try and find peace behind the locked doors, but a scream ripped from my mouth. It was a high scream of hatred and despair that penetrated the house. I tried to hold it back, but I could not contain it. Another followed as loud and as piercing as a Nazgul's cry. I had never screamed before. Never. As far back as I could remember.

_I want to kill. I want to kill. _I kept thinking that over and over in my mind. My breath was heavy from resisting the desire. I paced back and forth.

I splashed cold water on my face, drank some, and splashed more on my arms, which were shaking. My whole body was shaking. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw two defiant, hopeless eyes in a red, screaming face. I choked and sunk down, sitting on the edge of the bathtub, breathing hard.

A thought sprung to my head. I was prisoner. I had always been a prisoner, even before the sons of Fëanor had come. Jailors were switched for a time, but now that the Fëanorians were out of the house so often, the position had gone back to my father.

I got up and washed the tears out of my eyes with cold water and a facecloth. Then I walked out of the bathroom and stood in my own room, staring at the dull, periwinkle walls. I heard footsteps on the stairs. Turning, I saw my mother. Her face was streaked with worry. I couldn't help but feel a certain sense of betrayal. She had told on me. I wasn't angry with her though.

Apprehensively, she walked over to me. "Are, are you all right?" she asked. Her voice was shaken.

I shook my head, taking a step back.

"Sometimes, I know things can be hard," she said. There was a sad look in her blue eyes. "You have to be patient. Things won't always be like this."

She held out her arms to me, her hands trembling slightly. I hugged her, for the warmth, for the support, and because I wanted her to shut up and stop making me empty promises. We were both prisoners, and she had less idea of a way out than I did. I pitied her and me and cried against her shoulder like a child.

* * *

><p>The next morning, Caranthir came back. He woke me to say good-bye.<p>

"What do you mean good-bye?" I asked, scrambling to sit up.

"Well, we can't stay here forever," Caranthir said. "It's severely imposing. Besides, we haven't found one clue as to how we got here or how we can get back. We've learned enough here about how to get on in this time, so I'll thank you, and we'll be on our way. I'm dreadfully sorry about the inconvenience."

"No, no," I said. "There was no inconvenience."

My heart was reeling in my chest. They couldn't leave. Yes, they had been a restraining bother and threatened to kill me, but I had grown fond of them. They had become a part of my life. Without the sons of Fëanor, my life would go back to its old dull, terrible cycle of hoping for things that would never come true. They were part of a fantasy that I needed to keep.

"Yes, well," Caranthir said, looking away. "I have to go. My brothers are waiting for me at the Church. We've got our own car now. Curufin's got a license. It's fake, but he can drive."

Now that I thought about it, Caranthir was kind of a friend to me. We both knew too much about each other. It would be terrible to see him leave. Everyone left. And then before I knew what I was saying or thinking, three simple words spilled from my mouth. Three words that would change everything.

"She's in England," I said.


	15. Chapter 15

"She's in England?" Caranthir repeated. "Lúthien is in England? How do you know that?"

I sat on my bed in silence. I had betrayed Lúthien. She had trusted me, and I had betrayed her. I had always considered myself a loyal person. I had thought that I was the sort of person who would give up anything for friend, but I had been very wrong. The day after I had gotten her email, I had given Lúthien's location away. It had taken just one bloody day, and I was good at secrets. I couldn't even use the blabbermouth excuse. I couldn't say that I was doing this out of infatuation for Caranthir either. I had no such feelings. Caranthir was captivating, of course, but I had never been sexually attracted to him or any of his brothers or anyone I had ever met for that matter. I had no excuse, besides the self-serving I-want-to-get-out-of-here one.

There was no way to take the words back though. I had to move forward. Caranthir had to trust me. He had to trust that I trusted him. Maybe then I could save Lúthien.

"She wrote me an email," I said.

"Why didn't you tell me this sooner?" said Caranthir.

"I just learned yesterday," I said quickly. "And I was in bed before you came back last night."

Caranthir nodded. My story made sense. I fidgeted under my blanket.

"Would you leave for a moment?" I asked. "I have to get dressed."

"Yes, of course," Caranthir said. He walked towards the door. "We'll talk later."

"Yeah," I said. I wasn't looking forward to that but I tossed him a smile as he went out.

I waited a while before climbing out of bed. I hadn't heard his footsteps going downstairs, but he wasn't in the hall when I peered out the door. I went through my morning ritual of brushing teeth, washing face, and putting day clothes on. I delayed during the last part, wondering what one should wear on a day like this. Should I wear something nice to show that I was trying to impress them? Perhaps I could act like I was interested in Caranthir, not over the top though. Curufin was always suspicious. A change might make him wonder. Though perhaps I could trust to Fëanorian arrogance? And they were all quite handsome. Most girls would be swooning over them, wouldn't they?

I had been frightfully not interested to start showing interest now though, and anyway Caranthir had read my mind. He knew all about me. He would see it as false. So, that was out. I would go with a friendship angle: _I considered Caranthir my friend. I trusted him, and I wanted Lúthien to be safe_. That was my reason for telling. Perfect. I went for a soft effect with my clothes: light blue blouse, white skirt. Then I decided to take a shower. Another plausible delay, and I would smell better afterwards. Besides, the strong scent of shampoo and soap might mask nervous sweat.

After the shower, I examined myself in my mother's mirror. I looked young, innocent, vulnerable, and terribly wet. I rang my hair out in the sink. I tried to dry it with the towel. It was still wet. I went downstairs. Celegorm, Curufin, and Caranthir were assembled round the kitchen table. They had a world map rolled out on the table, and Celegorm was in front of my mother's laptop, staring with interest at the screen. I glanced at the clock. It was nine-thirty.

"Good morning," I said.

"Good morning," said Celegorm. He looked up, smiling. That was a good sign.

Curufin scrutinized my face. "Show us the email."

"I deleted it," I said. I looked down at the floor. The morning sun shone in patches on the red linoleum.

"Why?" Curufin said sharply.

I took a breath and looked up at him. "I had a hard time making up my mind about whether I should tell you or not."

"Why?" He didn't stir from his seat. His face was still as stone. Only his lips were moving, but that was unnerving enough.

"She seemed so unhappy here," I said. "I thought she might be better off on her own, but later, I realized how stupid that was. You're right, there are so many things she doesn't know about here and that could endanger her. And I care for her."

I hung my head in false shame. I had had to swallow back quite a bit of pride to say all that.

Curufin smiled. He got out of his chair and walked around the table towards me. He touched my shoulder.

"Of course, you care for Lúthien," he said. "We all do. Unfortunately, England is a rather large place to start looking for her. It would be nice if we had a tighter location."

He tilted my head up.

I looked into his steel grey eyes. "She didn't say."

"Write to her then," he said. His fingernails dug into my cheeks. Just at that moment, I remembered a passage from The Silmarillion: the one where Curufin tried killing Lúthien after Beren had "humiliated" him. Curufin was a violent man. He might kill Lúthien. He might kill me, and I had seconds to decide what was the safest thing to say. Lying and saying that I had forgotten what Lúthien's email address was not it.

"All right," I said. "I will."

Curufin let go of me and smiled again.

"But you have to promise me two things," I added quickly.

"Oh, what?" said Curufin. His eyes were narrowed, and there was a hint of surprise in his voice.

"When you find Lúthien you must promise not to hurt her," I said.

"And the second promise?"

"You must take me with you," I said.

"Why?" he said.

"Because otherwise I won't write to her," I said. "And also because I think I could be a valuable asset to you."

"How so?" Curufin leaned back against our small fridge, scattering the magnets with his hands. His skin looked white, almost transparent, in the light coming in from the hall. It contrasted sharply with his very black hair, which fell loose over his shoulders that morning.

"Well," I said hesitantly. "I am more familiar with this world than you are, and even though you might have studied a lot about my world in books and on the computer, the practical aspects of being a human being in the twenty-first century are much more subtle and prone to change from place to place. For example, the way you acted at school – your insistence on always being right – really annoyed the teachers. They tolerated it, but in other places, you might not have gotten off as easy. In some places, someone would have hurt you or even tried killing you."

"Thanks for your concern," Curufin said. "But I can defend myself. I don't need a mortal maiden looking out for me."

"I am sure you can defend yourself," I said. "But it would be better if you didn't get in that situation in the first place. I care for you, all of you. I wouldn't want you to get in trouble."

This was surprisingly true. Sometimes I felt that everything I said was a lie (if with a grain of truth behind it), but I did feel responsible for the Fëanorians. Not that I should. They had just been dumped in my arms one day. I guessed there was something endearing about that. Their vulnerability as toys was short lived, but it had happened. They were killers, and they were cursed, but I wanted to go with them and help them. It was terribly stupid.

"Fine," Curufin said. "I agree to the terms. We won't hurt Lúthien, and we'll take you."

I looked up at him startled. It just seemed too easy. Was Curufin trying to trick me?"

"You will?" I said. "You swear?"

Curufin looked around at his brothers. Celegorm shrugged. Caranthir nodded his consent.

"I swear," Curufin said.

"All right," I said. "Good."

Celegorm turned the laptop towards me.

"Write to her now," Curufin said. He shoved a chair out and pushed me into it. I looked at the computer screen, thinking fast. I opened my school email. I clicked 'compose'. I wrote Lúthien's email address and quickly typed:

Where are you in England?

I sent it, trusting to Lúthien's intelligence. I had told her not to write to my school email. I had told her Curufin was checking it. I had not signed the message. If she were clever, she would guess that this was one of the Fëanorians writing, not me.

I sat back.

"What do we do now?" Celegorm asked. He was looking at the screen but could only see the school related emails in my mailbox.

"Now we have to wait for her to write back," I said.

It didn't take long. Five minutes later – the Fëanorians hung around the computer diligently watching the screen – Celegorm shouted: "She wrote back!"


	16. Chapter 16

Curufin opened the email and read through it quickly. I could not see the screen, as the three brothers were clumped together, blocking it, but I could see Curufin's reaction, his knitted brows.

"She's left England," he said. "That's all she said – she's left England."

"There's no further address?" Celegorm asked desperately.

"As you can see, nothing," said Curufin. He whirled on me. "You knew this would happen, didn't you? You warned her somehow."

"Curufin, be reasonable," said Caranthir. He caught his brother by the arm. "How could she warn Lúthien? She was here in this room when that message was sent and before. Anyhow, she told us where Lúthien was quite willing."

"Yes," said Curufin, shoving Caranthir away. "But why would Lúthien decide to move on as soon as she got the email? Do you truly think that a coincidence?"

Celegorm looked between Curufin and Caranthir. "It might not have to do with the email. Lúthien could have just grown bored of – "

"Don't be dull," said Curufin. "It has to do with the email."

"She said she has already left the country."

"To throw us off," said Curufin. "Lúthien knows something is going on, and I bet _she_," he paused to glare at me, "warned her."

"The question might have provoked her suspicion," said Caranthir. "Perhaps Lúthien wonders why her friend wanted to know _exactly_ where she was."

Curufin looked sharply at me.

"What?" I said. "You were the one who told me what to write."

"No," said Curufin, coolly. "I told you to ask her where she was, but you did not wait for my context for that question. You should have put the question between droll friendship rubbish, which I am sure you could have spawned satisfactorily. Instead, you just jot down the question and send."

"I'm sorry," I said. "You seemed in a hurry."

"Can we not argue about this?" said Celegorm. "It's wasting our time. We have to figure out what to do."

"That is precisely what I am trying to figure out." Curufin looked at the email again.

"Maybe," said Celegorm, "we ask her where she's heading?"

"No," said Curufin. "That would seem stalker-ish." He paused. "I wonder if there's a way to track someone by their email."

"Google it," said Celegorm.

"I am." Curufin opened up another page of the internet explorer search engine that my mother had on her laptop. Because our internet was dial-up, it took about three minutes for the page to load. Curufin then typed in "track people using email address." We had to wait another five minutes for the result page to finally pop up.

I felt my heart beat in my chest. Was there a way? I wasn't sure, though I was starting to suspect there probably was. That _would_ happen to me. I had wanted to save Lúthien, and now I was betraying her again.

"Ha!" Curufin said. "There is a way." He opened one of the results, waited impatiently for it to load, and then scrolled quickly through it. "Apparently," he said, "you can track someone by her IP address, which we should be able to find in the header of the email."

He looked at her email again. The three brothers were still clustered around the laptop, being tall, so I couldn't see much.

"All right," Curufin said. "I'm tracking this." He had opened another page and was pasting the numbers into the search engine. This was about the time when I, as the flawed side character, should throw all rationality aside and tackle Curufin, while at the same time managing to delete Lúthien's email, erase the search history, close all tabs, destroy the computer, and then die, of course. I just stood there.

There _were _three of them.

"She's in Oxford," said Curufin. "The city of Oxford in England."

"Well, then," said Caranthir. "We know."

"For now," Curufin said. "But we have to get there before she escapes. We must fly across the sea on one of those plane things you have."

"Those are expensive," I said, trying in some small, unsuspect way to deter them. "Where are you going to get the money for that?"

"What makes you think we are going to pay," said Celegorm. "We could wrest a plane –"

"Hijack a plane?" I said. "You must be crazy. Security is very tight, and even if you did manage to steal it, they would send other planes out and track you down. They don't take any risks, not since 9/11."

"9/11?" said Celegorm.

9/11 to me was not as a shocking experience as to some. I remembered sitting on the living room floor in the house we used to rent, watching the towers go up in flame on the TV. My world at that time was already falling apart. I was eight. My little brother was in the hospital, dying of some rare disease. I thought then that nothing was stable.

"911 was –" I began. But Caranthir broke in softly.

"We read about that," he told his brother. "The twin towers – they were hit by a plane that was hijacked by terrorists. Elina's right, stealing a plane would not be a wise decision."

"But we must leave," said Celegorm, "and soon."

"Of course, of course," said Curufin. "But, we must do so in as inconspicuous a fast fashion as possible." He leaned his elbows against the table, head in hands, thinking. "I know – we'll rob a bank!"

"That's inconspicuous?" I asked.

"Oh, don't worry," said Curufin, patting my arm. "I wouldn't get caught. I am cleverer than that."

He smiled benignly down at me, as if I were a dog, who needed to be reassured about going to the vet. I was surprised by this change. One moment, he acted like I was a spy, the next he treated me like, well, a pet. It was so unpredictable and disconcerting. Then again, Curufin always was.

"Why can't you just forge money?" said Celegorm. "Like you did with our ID's."

"Too risky," said Curufin. "As it is, I don't think our ID's would stand up to the investigation of the FBI. Happily, they are presently not interested in us, but I don't want to forge money too."

"So, you're just going to steal it?" I said.

"Well, yes that would be the fast and simple solution. Unless your family would lend us the money."

"I don't think we have that much," I said truthfully. "But, but, you could get a loan from the bank, instead of stealing the cash."

"Yes," said Curufin. "I suppose." He looked disappointed at the thought. "But then I would have to get a bank account, and I don't want my identity everywhere."

I was surprised that Curufin _didn't _have a bank account: he seemed to adapt himself so well to the modern world. How did he deal with the university – everything in cash? Where did he get the money for that anyway? Had he stolen money before? Probably. But a bank?

"Besides," Celegorm broke in, "This way is more fun."

I shook my head and looked up at Caranthir pleadingly.

He shrugged. "We have to do what we have to do."

"I am glad we are finally in agreement," said Curufin. He threw an arm about Caranthir's shoulder then glanced at me. "You really don't have to worry," he said. "We won't get caught."


End file.
